"Mary, I wish you to bear witness to my action, so that if you are ever
questioned you may be able to tell the truth. Recollect that to-night
is the ninth of April--is it not?"
"Yes; why?" she inquired, more puzzled than ever.
"Because I have decided that that safe in the library shall never again
be reopened while I live. See! Here is the key!" and he gave it into
her hand, urging her to examine it, which she did under the bright
moonbeams.
Then he took it from her hand, and with a sudden movement tossed it as
far as he could towards the centre of the deep stream, where it fell
with a splash.
He sighed, as though a great weight had been lifted from his mind, and
as they turned to re-ascend the hill he said with a grim laugh--
"If anyone wishes to open it now, he'll have a good deal of difficulty,
I think."
That was all. She had never questioned him further. She had been
witness of the wilful concealment of the key, but the reason she knew
not. There were state secrets, she supposed, and she always regarded
them as mysterious and inexplicable.
Yet the safe had been reopened--if not by the actual key flung into the
river, then by a copy.
But what motive had Dubard in coming there on a visit during the
Minister's absence, and making careful examination of the documents
which had been so zealously hidden?
Out on the terrace that evening Dubard had, by giving her that warning,
shown himself to be her father's friend. Yet surely this secret prying
was no act of friendship?
And this was the man who had courted and flattered her--the man whom
more than once she had believed that she could love!
Her heart beat quickly, for she scarce dared to breathe, lest she should
betray her presence. The silence was unbroken save that within the room
was the rustle of papers as the man carefully glanced over folio after
folio.
The writing-table stood a little to the left, beyond the range of her
sight, therefore he was for a long time invisible to her. Yet in the
dead silence she could distinctly hear the scratching of a pen, as
though he were making some extracts or memoranda. He had evidently lit
the lamp upon the table, for his candle still stood on the floor before
the open safe.
As she listened she heard him laugh lightly to himself, a harsh, low,
mocking laugh, which echoed through the big old room, and then he rose
and carried back the bundle of documents carefully retied, and placed
them in their drawer, afterwards taking out another, and looking at the
docket upon it.
From the latter he saw it was of no interest to him, therefore he tossed
it back, as he did a second and a third. He seemed to be searching for
something he could not find, and his failure caused him considerable
chagrin.
His actions held her utterly dumbfounded. Although she had been
attracted by his personality and his courtesy, she had, with that
curious intuition which women possess, regarded him with some vague
distrust. What she now discovered made it plain that she had not been
mistaken. Her father had welcomed him to his house, had entertained
him, and had regarded him as a man of sterling worth, notwithstanding
his Parisian elegance of manner and foppishness of attire.
In their family circle her father had, indeed, more than once expressed
admiration of the count's high qualities, which showed how completely
the man had insinuated himself into the Minister's confidence. But the
truth was now revealed, and he was unmasked.
Her natural indignation that he, a comparative stranger, should seek to
inquire into her father's most carefully guarded private affairs,
prompted her to burst in upon him and demand the reason of his
duplicity; but as she watched, she recognised that the most judicious
course would be to remain silent, and to describe to her father all that
she had witnessed.
Therefore she remained motionless with strained eyes, set teeth, and
quickly beating heart, gazing upon the man who had accepted her mother's
hospitality only to make an examination of her father's secrets.
An hour passed. The deep-toned clock struck the hour of four, followed
by the far-distant bell of Florence. She was cramped, chilled, and in
darkness, for she had extinguished her light in order that he should not
be attracted by it shining beneath the door.
Presently, however, she saw from his dark, heavy countenance, lit by the
uncertain light of the candle, that he was deeply disappointed. He had
searched, but had evidently failed to find what he expected. Therefore
he commenced busily to rearrange the packets in the steel drawers, just
as he had found them, preparatory to relocking the safe and retiring to
his room.
She recognised that he had concluded his search--for that night, at any
rate--for there still remained four or five drawers full of papers
unexamined. Servants rise early in Italy, and he feared, perhaps, that
he might be discovered. The remaining papers he reserved for the
following night.
She watched him close the safe door and place the key in his pocket,
then she rose, caught up her candle, and sped along the corridors back
to her own room.
She relit her candle, and as she did so caught the reflection of her own
face in the long mirror, and was startled to see how ghastly pale it
was.
The discovery amazed her. She realised that the man who courted her so
assiduously and who flattered her so constantly was in search of
something which he believed to be in her father's possession. How he
had recovered that key which had been thrown deep into the Arno at that
lonely reach of the river beneath the tall cypresses, was an utter
mystery.
Should she go to her mother and tell her of all she had seen? Her first
impulse was to reveal everything, and seek her mother's counsel; yet on
reflection she deemed it wiser to tell her father all she knew. The
natural impulse of a daughter was, of course, to take her mother into
her confidence, but one fact alone prevented this--only a few days
previously her mother had been so loud in praise of the count, in order,
it seemed, to recommend him to her daughter. Madame Morini was, with
her husband, equally eager to see a formal engagement between the pair,
and was surprised and disappointed to notice the cold, imperturbable
manner in which Mary always treated him. Mary had realised this long
ago, and for that reason now hesitated to tell her mother the truth.
Next morning, while she was puzzling over what excuse she could make to
go to Rome, her mother came to her with an open letter in her hand,
saying that her father had been called to Naples to be present at an
official reception of King Humbert by that city, and would not return to
the Ministry for three days. This news caused Mary's heart to sink
within her, for she saw the uselessness of going to Rome until he
returned.
That day she avoided Dubard, making an excuse that she had a headache,
and spending most of the time alone in her little boudoir. The
Frenchman took the other girls for an excursion through the woods, and
during his absence she entered the great old library and carefully
examined the lock of the safe.
It showed no sign of having been tampered with, having evidently been
opened with its proper key--or an exact copy of it. The waste-paper
basket was empty, the maid having taken it away that morning; but the
blotting-pad caught her eye, and she held it before the long old empire
mirror and tried to read the impressions of the words he had copied.
But in vain. One or two disjointed words in French she made out, but
they told her absolutely nothing. He had evidently made memoranda of
the documents in French, or else the documents themselves had been
written in French.
She knew, by his actions on the previous night, that he intended to
return and conclude his investigations, and a sudden idea occurred to
her to thwart his plans. The real object of his search he had
apparently not discovered, therefore it was her duty to prevent him from
obtaining it, and yet at the same time remain secret and appear to
possess no knowledge of his attempt. She reflected for some time how
best to accomplish this, when at last a mode essentially feminine
suggested itself--one which she hoped would be effective.
Again she crossed to that huge green-painted safe let into the wall,
which contained her father's secrets--and many of the military secrets
of the kingdom of Italy--and taking a hairpin from her tightly bound
tresses--always the most handy feminine object--she broke off a piece of
the wire about an inch long, which she carefully inserted in the
keyhole, poking it well in by means of the other portion of the pin
until she heard it fall with a click into the delicate mechanism of the
lock.
Then, smiling to herself, she withdrew, knowing that whatever attempt
Dubard now made to reopen that door would be without avail. There was
nothing to show that anyone had interfered with the mechanism, therefore
he would be entirely unsuspecting, and would attribute the non-working
to some defect in the lock itself, or in the key.
That night she sat next him at dinner, bearing herself as bravely bright
and vivacious as ever, and determined that his suspicions should not be
aroused; while he, on his part, thought her more charming than ever.
The evening passed as usual in the small drawing-room with music and
gossip, and later, after all had retired and one o'clock had struck,
Mary crept out in the darkness to the library, where, sure enough, she
saw, on peering through the keyhole, the man who was so cleverly
courting her actively trying to open the safe door.
The key would only half turn, and in French he muttered some low words
of chagrin and despair. He tried and tried, and tried again, but all to
no purpose. He withdrew the key, blew into the barrel, examined it in
the light, and then tried once more.
But the lock had become jammed, and neither by force nor by light
manoeuvring could he turn the key sufficiently to shoot back the huge
shining bolts that held the door on every side.
Mary's effort had been successful. By that tiny piece of wire her
father's secrets were held in safety.