Part 22 (1/2)
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 a.s.sisted by your daughter, the Signorina Mary.”
”Solaro a.s.sisted 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 a.s.sist 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 a.s.sisted him.”
”But what do they say of his friends.h.i.+p 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 doc.u.ments 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.