Because this unfortunate affair reflects upon the honour of my command.
Oh, of course. It is all very well to speak heroically after the event! exclaimed the Minister of War, with a hard, dry laugh. The mischief has been done, and one of your officers has been found guilty of treason of selling a military secret to a foreign power.
Found guilty, yes, exclaimed the unfortunate captain. But innocent, nevertheless!
Morini shrugged his shoulders, and seating himself in his writing-chair took some official memoranda from a drawer in the table. Then, having glanced quickly at it, he said
The facts are quite plain. This man, Felice Solaro, of the 6th Alpine Regiment, is in garrison on Mont Gran Paradiso in the Alps, where on the other side of the mountain, at Tresenta, we have recently constructed a new fortress, for the protection of the frontier at that point. This fortress, which is sunk out of sight, has taken four and a half years to construct, and was only completed and garrisoned six months ago. It commands the Oreo valley, which, in the event of hostilities with France, would be one of the most vulnerable points on the frontier. French agents have, time after time, endeavoured to learn something of our works up there; but so well has the spot been guarded that only two agents have succeeded in obtaining sight of it, and both were arrested and are now in prison as spies. And yet, in spite of all this, there was found in Solaros quarters by an orderly fragments of a curious letter in French addressed to Mon cher Felice, acknowledging receipt of the plans, thanking him, and enclosing the sum agreed upon in Italian banknotes.
The letter was never addressed to me, the captain cried. I know nothing of it. The whole thing was a conspiracy to ruin and disgrace me!
But there are other facts supplied by the secret service, went on the Minister in a dry, hard tone, turning to the accused man. You spent your last leave in Paris; you were seen by one of our agents in the company of a man well-known to be a French spy. You went to various places of amusement with him, drank with him at the Hôtel Chatham, at the Grand Café, and other places, and, added Morini, looking him straight in the face, and what is more, he lent you money. Do you deny that?
The captain stood glaring at his accuser, utterly dumbfounded. This latter truth had not been given in evidence against him. The Minister therefore held certain secret information of which he was in entire ignorance. He had been watched in Paris! He held his breath, and was silent. Even the general looked at him in surprise and suspicion.
No, he answered hoarsely at last, I do not deny it. The man did lend me money.
For what purpose eh? In order to obtain from you in secret the plans of the Tresenta fortress, declared His Excellency. French agents do not lend money to Italian officers without some quid pro quo.
I did not know that the fellow was a spy until afterwards.
Until it was too late, I suppose. You were entrapped, so you were compelled to give the plans to France. Now admit it.
I assert that I am entirely innocent, he declared. It is true that I spent my leave in Paris, where I met a man who called himself Georges Latrobe, an engineer from Bordeaux, who spoke Italian I ran short of cash, and he lent me five hundred francs, which I repaid to him ten days after my return to barracks. It was only on the last day when I was with him that my suspicions were aroused regarding his real character. We were sitting together in the Café Terminus, when he turned the conversation to our defences on the Alpine frontier, expressing a desire to visit me at Gran Paradiso. I at once told him that the admission of strangers within the military zone was prohibited. But he pressed me, and even went so far as to offer me a receipt for the money he had lent me, together with a like sum if I could gain him admission, in order, so he said, to see the latest feat of Italian engineering. But my suspicions were at once aroused. I told him that his suggestion was impossible, and from that day I have not seen him.
But you furnished him with plans and details of the fortifications? snapped the Minister of War.
I did not, denied the captain stoutly. I admit that I very narrowly escaped falling into a clever trap, but fortunately saved myself. If the plans have actually been furnished, then they have been given by someone else, not by me; and that letter was placed in my quarters in order to divert suspicion from the guilty person.
Ah, a very ingenious story! the Minister laughed incredulously. You admit being friendly with the spy?
I admit all that is the truth, your Excellency, but I flatly deny that I am a traitor to my king, was the accused mans quick, response.
But you see you were watched while on leave, the Minister went on, referring to his report. On your return from Paris you travelled by way of Milan to Bologna, where you visited a certain Signora Nodari and her daughter.
The latter was my betrothed, the unhappy man explained.
Exactly. Then how do you account for the agent Latrobe calling upon her a month later and obtaining from her a packet which she had received by post from the garrison of Gran Paradiso? It was only afterwards that this fact was known, otherwise the spy would not have escaped from Italy.
Captain Solaro stood rigid.
Have you really proof of this, your Excellency? he demanded in a low, hoarse voice. I I cannot think that she would betray me.
Ah! Never trust a woman, observed the Minister, with a grim smile. She has made a statement a statement which proves everything.
Which proves? he cried wildly. Which proves I am innocent.
No, declared Morini calmly. Which proves that you are guilty.
Ah, but let me tell you how
No more! cried Morini, rising with quick anger from his chair and snapping his fingers in impatience. You have been found guilty and sentenced, and I think that even your general, after your own admissions, is now convinced of his injudicious and ridiculous attempt to shield a traitor.
Ah! cried the unfortunate man, hot tears springing to his eyes, I see now how I have been betrayed and I know by whom!
I have no further time to waste upon hearing any counter-charges, abruptly answered the Minister. From to-day you are dismissed the army in disgrace. My decree will appear in to-nights Gazette, and, General Valentini, he added meaningly, turning to the stern old officer who had writhed beneath the civilians rebuke, convey your prisoner back to Turin, and do not again become the gaoler of a traitor.
You absolutely refuse to hear me further, then! cried the captain in wild desperation, dismayed to find that all attempt to clear his character had failed.
I do.
The accused man with set teeth drew his sword, and with one quick wrench across his knee broke the gleaming blade and cast it ringing upon the marble floor.
Take my sword! he cried, drawing himself up to the salute. Take my honour take my life! But you even you, Camillo Morini cannot condemn me with justice! One day you shall know that I am innocent you hear! innocent!
And with firm tread he strode out of the Ministers private room, followed by his general, who merely saluted in stiff silence, his scabbard trailing upon the marble.
Chapter Nine
His Excellency Learns the Truth
The Minister of War was seated busily writing beneath the green-shaded reading-lamp in the big library of the great old Antinori Palace, his handsome residence in Rome.
Chapter Nine
His Excellency Learns the Truth
The Minister of War was seated busily writing beneath the green-shaded reading-lamp in the big library of the great old Antinori Palace, his handsome residence in Rome.
Five years ago he had bought that enormous old place in the Via Nazionale a place full of historic interest together with its old furniture, its gallery of cinquecento paintings, and its corridor filled with armour. It was a high, square, ponderous place of princely dimensions, with a great central courtyard where an old fountain plashed on in the silence as it had done for three centuries or more, while around the arched cloisters were the carved arms of the various families through whose hands the place had passed in generations bygone.
The library was a high room on the first floor, with long cases filled with parchment-covered books, many of them illuminated codices and rare editions, a fine frescoed ceiling, and a great open hearth over which was an ornamentation of carved marble of the Renaissance with a grinning mascherino. The floor was of marble, except that the littered writing-table was set upon an oasis of thick Turkey carpet, giving to the room an austere character of comfortless grandeur, like everything else in that huge old palace of the days when every house of the Roman nobility was a fortress.
An Italian Ministers life is not by any means an easy one, as Camillo Morini had long ago discovered. He was often in his private cabinet at the Ministry of War at nine oclock in the morning, and frequently sent home by his private secretary urgent papers which he could examine and initial after dinner, as he had done that day. His wife and daughter were up at the villa near Florence for the vintage, and he was alone and undisturbed. He had not even troubled to change for dinner, but was still in the linen suit he had worn during the day, and had merely exchanged his white coat for an easy black alpaca one.
As Minister of War, his salary was one thousand pounds sterling per annum, an amount quite inadequate for his needs. True, he travelled free in his private saloon on the railway, but yet he had a most uncomfortable time of it owing to the fact that he was expected by his friends to repay them for services rendered with the gift of offices, favours, introductions, and recommendations. Wherever he went he was besieged by a host of people who wanted favours, exemptions of their sons from military service, increased stipend, or the redressing of some act of official injustice or petty tyranny.
His wife, too, was pestered with recommendations to him; for without recommendations nothing could be obtained. If he went to inspect the garrison of a provincial town, the prefect, the mayor, the head of the carabinieri, and the most prominent citizens called on him every day; while when in the country the wheezy village band played operatic airs outside his window every evening, alternated with a chorus of children from the elementary schools.
His sovereign, King Humbert, although good-natured and brave, was too easy-going and lacking in moral stamina to make a really strong monarch, hence the whole Cabinet, from the Prime Minister downwards, were guilty of grave irregularities, if not of actual corruption. The fault, however, lay with the system, rather than with the men. How could a Cabinet Minister entertain lavishly and keep up appearances upon a mere thousand pounds a year, when he had no private means?
Happily, the present hard-working, cultivated king, Victor Emmanuel the Third, has mastered all the details of state business, and has swept his Cabinet clean of those men who abused their position under his lamented father, until the whole face of Italian politics has entirely changed since the days when Camillo Morini held office as head of the army.
Under the late King Humbert, Ministers were often chosen, not because they were capable statesmen, but simply because it was necessary that a particular region should be represented in the Cabinet, so as not to arouse local jealousies. In any case, their tenure of office was too precarious and too short to enable them to do much good work, and whatever the Minister managed to do would probably be undone by his successor.
Morini would have gone out of office half a dozen times had he not succeeded, by judicious bribery, in obtaining protection from his enemies. Indeed, he only retained office by dint of his own ingenuity and clever diplomacy towards those who were ever trying to hound him down. Not only did he bear the great responsibility of the army, but, in common with other members of the Cabinet, the greater part of his activity was absorbed in the manipulation of party groups in the Chamber and in studying parliamentary exigencies. He had to judiciously subsidise certain newspapers in view of a general election, make use of the secret service fund in certain quarters, and be careful not to shower too many favours on one province; for if he offended any particular town, the local deputy, hitherto a staunch ministerialist, would turn and rend him.
Truly his position, head of an army costing sixteen millions annually, and with a multitude of people bent on getting something out of him, was the reverse of comfortable. He would have resigned long ago had he dared, but resignation or dismissal from office would, he knew only too well, spell ruin to him. So he was held there in an office of bribery and dishonesty, which he had grown to regard with bitter hatred. He had served through three administrations, it was true, and was a trusted servant of his king, yet the daily worry of it all, the ever-present fear of exposure and of downfall, held him in constant apprehension of a future ruin and obscurity.
The dead silence of the night was unbroken save by the scratching of his quill as he scribbled his signature upon one after another of the pile of various papers at his elbow.
He wrote mechanically, for he was reflecting upon that scene in his cabinet when the captain of Cacciatori Alpini had broken his sword across his knee.
A clever fellow! he murmured. He thought to bluff me, but he did not know how closely I had had him watched. If I did not know all that I do, I really believe I should have thought him innocent. A good actor. I will send his broken sword as a present to that doddering old fool, his general as a souvenir of his visit to Rome without leave! he laughed to himself, still continuing to sign the commissions and decrees.
Of a sudden there was a rap at the big white doors at the end of the dimly lit room, and a gorgeously dressed man-servant in stockings and gold-laced coat advanced to the table, saying
The Onorevole Ricci desires to see your Excellency.
Pigs head! Didnt I give orders that I was not at home? he cried, turning furiously upon the man.
But your Excellency is always at home to the Signor Deputato? the servant reminded him, surprised at the sudden outburst of anger.
Ah! growled his master. Yes, you are right, Antonio! I forgot that I told you I was always at home to him. I must see him, I suppose, he sighed, and when the man had gone his brow contracted, his teeth clenched; yet almost before he could recover his self-possession the long white doors reopened, and his visitor a short, dark-bearded, middle-aged man in evening dress was ushered in.
Ah, my dear Camillo! he cried enthusiastically, advancing towards the Minister, who rose and took his hand. I only arrived in Rome this afternoon, and heard you had returned from England. Well, and how are you after your holiday? I suppose I may take a cigar? he asked, crossing to the cigar-box, opening it, and selecting one.
The rest was welcome, answered the other calmly, stretching his arms above his head and glancing furtively at the new-comer as though he held him in some suspicion. He was a pleasant-looking man, a trifle stout, with a round, sun-bronzed face, as though fond of good living, while his perfectly fitting dress-suit was cut in a style which showed it to be the garment of a London tailor. He possessed the careless, easy manner of the gentleman, striking a match and lighting his cigar with a familiarity which showed that he was no stranger to the Ministers roof.