On the following afternoon, in consequence of a telegram, the Minister
of War drove into Florence, and met Vito Ricci at the club.
He seldom took the train to Florence because, on account of his
position, the obsequious officials treated him with so much ceremony.
He was a modest man, who at heart hated all bowing officialdom, much
preferring to drive through the rich vineyards of the Arno valley to
being received at the station by all the officials and having the
ordinary traffic stopped on his arrival.
The Florence Club, an institution run upon English lines, is one of the
most exclusive in Europe. It occupies the whole of a huge flat in the
new Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele, handsomely appointed, with fine spacious
rooms overlooking the busy centre of Florentine life. Its members are
mostly men of the highest social standing in Italy, together with a
select few of rich English and Americans, to whom membership gives the
hall-mark of rank in that complex cosmopolitan world. In winter and
spring its rooms are well-filled and its bridge-tables are well
patronised, but in summer and autumn, when all Florence is away in the
mountains or at the sea, it is deserted and handed over to the care of a
couple of waiters, who scarcely see a member from one week's end to the
other.
The Deputy Ricci had telegraphed that he had no time to come up to San
Donato, as he could only spend three hours in Florence; therefore the
club was the most convenient place where they could meet and consult
undisturbed. The urgency of Ricci's message had aroused the other's
apprehensions that something was amiss.
"Ah!" cried the deputy in relief as the Minister entered the small
card-room where he stood impatiently awaiting him. "I began to fear
that my telegram had not reached you." And the pair having shaken
hands, Ricci went to the door and locked it.
Then when they crossed to the window, which gave a view of the wide-open
piazza with its colossal statue in the centre, Ricci said--
"I left Rome this morning at nine, and I return by the express at six.
I came here purposely to see you."
"Has something occurred?" asked His Excellency quickly, glancing at the
dark face of the Piedmontese lawyer who sat in the Chamber of Deputies
and made politics his living.
"Yes," was Ricci's answer in a low half-whisper. "You recollect our
conversation when we met last--about the impending crisis?"
"Yes. You promised, for certain considerations, to turn the political
tide in my favour."
"I have tried to do so, but have failed," said the other in a deep,
serious voice.
"Failed?" gasped the Minister as, in an instant, all the light died out
of his face.
"The Opposition is too strong," he explained. "Borselli has so
completely won over the Socialists that he can cause them to dance to
any tune he pleases."
Camillo Morini's face was blanched. Ruin was before him--ruin, utter
and complete. He had trusted in Vito, feeling confidence in that
adventurer's ingenuity and influence. More than once this adventurer
had cleverly turned the tide of popular thought, for certain journals
were always open to write what the popular deputy for Asti dictated, and
of course received substantial bribes for so doing. Yet at this most
crucial moment he had failed!
"I made you the payment on condition that you were successful in
rendering me the service," remarked His Excellency hoarsely.
"I know, I know," was the other's response. "I have brought back the
money to repay you." And he took from his leather wallet a banker's
draft, which he handed to the Minister.
The tall, thin, refined-looking man stood motionless, his eyes fixed for
a moment upon the slip of paper thus offered back to him. He recognised
that the efforts of his secret agent, whose services had so often been
invaluable, were of no avail, that his doom was sealed.
"No. Keep it, Vito," he said hoarsely, with a dry, hollow laugh, that
sarcasm born of desperation. "You have earned it--keep it."
The other raised his shoulders in regret, and then, with a word of
thanks, replaced the draft in his pocket.
There was a long silence. A company of _bersaglieri_, those well-set-up
men with their round hats and cock's plumes, were crossing the piazza,
marching to the fanfare of trumpets, and behind them came a company of
the Misericordia, that mediaeval confraternity disguised in their long
black gowns with slits for their eyes, passing with their ambulance on
an errand of mercy.
Morini gazed upon that weird, tragic procession hurrying across the
square, and within him there arose grave and morbid reflections. He had
worked for Italy, had given his whole soul to the reform of the army and
the perfecting of the defences of the nation he had loved so well. It
was more the fault of the system than his own that he had been guilty of
dishonesty. The other members of the Cabinet were equally guilty of
misappropriating the national funds. They were, indeed, compelled to do
so in order to keep up their position, to maintain and pay the secret
agents they employed, and to bribe the men of influence from seeking to
expose their thefts.
Surely poor strangled Italy under the regime of his lamented Majesty
King Umberto was in very evil case!
"I have trusted in you, Vito," the Minister said simply, when he again
found tongue, for the ugly truth had utterly staggered him.
"And I have done my best, your Excellency," was the other's reply. "In
the Camera and out of it, I have worked unceasingly in order to try and
win you back into favour, but Borselli is far too strong. He has
influential friends, who believe they will obtain appointments and money
if he is in office as Minister of War. Hence they are working by every
means to place him in power."
"And to cause my downfall and ruin!" murmured the unhappy man, staring
blankly down at the piazza, still dazzlingly white in the hot sun-glare.
The adventurer sighed. To Camillo Morini he owed everything, and was
conscious of the fact. He had no words to express his regret at his
failure, for he knew too well all that it meant to the man before him.
"The success of the French secret service upon the Alpine frontier is
the chief capital of the Opposition," Ricci explained. "They say you
have connived at it, and that Solaro was assisted by your daughter, the
Signorina Mary."
"Solaro assisted by her! How?"
"They have discovered that he was her friend. They were noticed
together in Rome a year ago, when they allege that she gave him certain
information gathered from your papers, which, in due course, reached the
French Ministry of War!"
"Impossible?" declared the Minister. "They are acquainted, I know. But
my daughter would never assist a traitor. It is infamous?"
"I quite agree with you. I cannot believe the signorina guilty of any
such action. Yet the truth remains that the secrets of the Tresenta are
actually in the hands of France."
"I know," groaned the unhappy man. "I know, Vito. But Solaro is
disgraced and imprisoned. Surely that is enough for them?"
"No. You misunderstand. They are raising the cry everywhere that Italy
is in danger--that you personally are culpable."
"They will say next that I myself have sold the plans to France!" he
cried bitterly.
"Ah! you know the kind of men Borselli has behind him--the most
unscrupulous set of office-seekers in Italy. They will hesitate at
nothing in order to arouse the public indignation against you. The fire
is already kindled, and they are now fanning it into a flame. I tried
to extinguish it. I offered a dozen bribes in various quarters, knowing
that you would willingly pay to secure safety--but all were rejected
because of Borselli's promise to them of fat emoluments in the future."
"Italy!" cried the Minister. "Oh, Italy! Must you fall into the hands
of such a gang of thieves? I have done my best. Dishonesty has been
forced upon me by this very man who now seeks to hound me out of office
and take my place. I have been blind, Vito," he added, "utterly blind."
"Yes," sighed the other, "I fear you have. Borselli has laid his plans
too well, and arranged the conspiracy with too deep a cunning, to fail.
I naturally believed that he could be fought with his own weapons, but I
have found myself mistaken. We must, alas! face the worst! To-morrow
the Socialists are to raise the question of Tresenta in the Camera; the
vote will be taken, the Government defeated, and the whole blame will
fall upon yourself. Borselli's organs of the Press all have their
orders to shriek and scream at you, to demand a searching inquiry
regarding the disposal of certain sums set apart for the army--even to
the giving of contracts to German contractors."
Morini started, and his grave face went paler.
"Then Borselli has betrayed me--he, who is equally guilty with myself?"
"To his friends who intend to obtain Government appointments at high
salaries he is innocent, while you alone are guilty," Ricci pointed out.
Then, sighing again, he added in a sympathetic voice,--for although a
political adventurer he was nevertheless a firm personal friend of the
Minister's,--"I declare to you, Camillo, I have done my very utmost.
But the weak point in our armour is the Tresenta affair, and the
signorina's acquaintance with the traitor Solaro. The natural
conclusion, of course, is that she assisted him."
"But what do they say of his friendship for her?"
"They allege that she was in love with him, but that, being only an
officer with little else but his pay, he feared to approach you to
obtain your permission to pay court to her, and that she, in order that
he might obtain money from the French War Intelligence Department, gave
him copies of certain secret documents which were in your possession."
"But I have no plans of the Tresenta," he declared quickly.
"There are other matters of which they allege the French have gained
knowledge--details of the new mobilisation scheme."
"Those papers are safely locked up at the Ministry," he answered. "Mary
has no knowledge of their existence."
"If France obtained copies of them, would they be of service to her?"
"Of course. They would reveal our vulnerable points, and would show
where she might strike us in order to destroy the concentration of our
troops upon the frontier. Those papers are the most important of any we
possess. The commanders of the various military districts have their
secret orders, but they would be useless without the key to the complete
scheme, which is kept safely from prying eyes in the Ministry. The
French have surely not obtained a copy of that!" he gasped.
"It seems that they have--through your daughter, it is alleged." Then
he added, with a sigh, "They have all their facts ready to launch
against you."
"Their untruths--their lies!" he cried desperately, clenching his fist.
"Ah, it is cruel! It is infamous! They even go so far as to brand my
daughter--my dear Mary--as a traitress!"
And the strong man of Italy--the ruler of a European army--covered his
face with his hands and sobbed aloud.
Vito Ricci had failed, yet was it any wonder that Morini's enemies
sought to attack his honour by making false and ignominious allegations
against his daughter?
The unhappy man looked into the future of ruin, disgrace, perhaps
prosecution by those very men who had been his friends, and saw but one
way open from that shame--death.
And yet was not such a thought irreligious and cowardly? If they
intended to attack his daughter, was it not his duty to defend her and
vindicate her good name?
Ricci, unscrupulous as he had been through years of political life,
sometimes holding by his intrigues the very fate of Italy in his hands,
stood by in silence, his chin sunk upon his breast, for he knew too well
that the ill-judged man to whom he was indebted for so much was to be
made the scapegoat of the corrupt Ministry--he knew that the man before
him was doomed, and yet he was utterly powerless to save him, even
though he was prepared to go to any length to attain that end.
Then, a moment later, when Camillo Morini thought of that degraded
officer, silent and suffering in the gloom of his prison, his mouth
hardened, he held his breath, and his jaws became hard set. He
remembered how that accused man had broken his sword before him and cast
the pieces at his feet as guage of his innocence.
Yet the die was cast. To-day he, Camillo Morini, was Italian Minister
of War, and the trusted adviser of his sovereign, King Umberto. But
to-morrow--to-morrow? Ah! would that the morrow could not come.