Part 71 (2/2)
”My word is law in Rome!”--went on Gherardi--”Whatsoever I choose to say will be confirmed and ratified by the greatest authority in the world--the Pope! I am ready to swear that Florian Varillo painted that picture,--and the Pope is ready to believe it! Who will admit such a masterpiece to be a woman's work? No one! Each member of the house of Sovrani can bear witness to the fact that no one ever saw Angela Sovrani painting it! But I know the whole story--I was the last to see Florian Varillo before his death--and he confessed the truth--that he had worked for his betrothed wife in order to give her the greater fame! So that he was not, and could not have been her a.s.sa.s.sin--”
”Then her a.s.sa.s.sin must be found!” said Prince Pietro suddenly. ”And the owner of this sheath--the sheath of the dagger with which she was stabbed--must claim his property!” And holding up the sheath in question before Gherardi he continued--
”This _I_ found! This _I_ traced! Varillo's servant admitted it to be his master's--Varillo's mistress recognised it as her lover's--a slight thing, Monsignor!--but an uncomfortable witness! And if you dare to promulgate your lie against my daughter and her work, I will accuse you in the public courts of complicity in an attempted murder! And I doubt whether the Pope will judge it politic, or a part of national diplomacy, to support you then!”
For a moment Gherardi was baffled. His dark brows met in a frown of menace and his lips tightened with his repressed fury. Then,--still managing to speak with the utmost composure, he said,
”You will permit me to look at this dagger-sheath--this proof on which you place so much reliance?”
In the certainty of his triumph, old Sovrani was ready to place it in the priest's extended hand, when young Vergniaud interposed and prevented him.
”No! You can admire it from a distance, Monsignor! You are capable in your present humour of tearing it to atoms and so destroying evidence!
As the 'servant' of Prince Sovrani, it is my business to defend him from this possibility!”
Gherardi raised his dark eyes and fixed them, full of bitterest scorn, on the speaker.
”So YOU are Gys Grandit!” he said in accents which thrilled with an intensity of hatred. ”You are the busy Socialist, the self-advertising atheist, who, like a yelping cur, barks impotently under the wheels of Rome! You--Vergniaud's b.a.s.t.a.r.d--”
”Give that name to your children at Frascati!” cried Cyrillon pa.s.sionately. ”And own them as yours publicly, as my father owned me before he died!”
With a violent start, Gherardi reeled back as though he had been dealt a sudden blow, and over his face came a terrible change, like the grey pallor of creeping paralysis. White to the lips, he struggled for breath . . . he essayed to speak,--then failing, made a gesture with his hands as though pus.h.i.+ng away some invisible foe. Slowly his head drooped on his breast, and he s.h.i.+vered like a man struck suddenly with ague. Startled and awed, everyone watched him in fascinated silence.
Presently words came slowly and with difficulty between his dry lips.
”You have disgraced me!” he said hoa.r.s.ely--”Are you satisfied?” He took a step or two close up to the young man. ”I ask you--are you satisfied?
Or--do you mean to go on--do you want to ruin me?--” Here, moved by uncontrollable pa.s.sion he threw up his hands with a gesture of despair.
”G.o.d! That it should come to this! That I should have to ask you--you, the enemy of the Church I serve, for mercy! Let it be enough I say!--and I--I also will be silent!”
Cyrillon looked at him straightly.
”Will you cease to persecute Cardinal Bonpre?” he demanded. ”Will you admit Varillo's murderous treachery?”
Gherardi bent his head.
”I will!” he answered slowly, ”because I must! Otherwise--” He clenched his fist and his eyes flashed fire-then he went on--”But beware of Lorenzo Moretti! He will depose the Cardinal from office, and separate him from that boy who has affronted the Pope. He is even now soliciting the Holy Father to intervene and stop the marriage of the Comtesse Sylvie Hermenstein with Aubrey Leigh,--and--they are married! No more--no more!--I cannot speak--let me go--let me go--you have won your way!--I give you my promise!”
”What is your promise worth?” said Vergniaud with disdain.
”Nothing!” replied Gherardi bitterly. ”Only in this one special instance it is worth all my life!--all my position! You--even you, the accursed Gys Grandit!--you have me in your power!”
He raised his head as he said this,--his face expressed mingled agony and fury; but meeting Cyrillon's eyes he shrank again as if he were suddenly whipped by a lash, and with one quick stride, reached the door, and disappeared.
There was a moment's silence after his departure. Then Aubrey Leigh spoke.
”My dear Grandit! You are a marvellous man! How came you to know Gherardi's secrets?”
”Through a section of the Christian-Democratic party here”--replied Cyrillon--”You must not forget that I, like you, have my disciples!
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