Kitabı oku: «Behind the Throne», sayfa 8

Chapter Fifteen
The Peril of a Nation

The revelation of the truth that Jules Dubard was making a methodical examination of her father’s private papers held Mary spellbound.

From where she bent her eye at the big old-fashioned keyhole, she saw that the ponderous steel door had been opened by a key, for it was still in the shining lock. Within that safe her father kept a number of important state papers relating to the army, and quantities of correspondence had, from time to time, been brought up from Rome by official secretaries and he had placed them there for safety.

Once, while she had been helping him to arrange a quantity of technical documents and tie them in bundles with pink tape, he had remarked —

“These are safer here than in Rome, my dear. There are thousands who long to get sight of them, but they would never think of looking here.”

But there had been a still further curious incident, one which she recalled vividly at that moment as she watched the man intently examining the documents by the light of his candle. It had happened back in April, when some matters connected with the estate called His Excellency from Rome, and he had brought Mary with him up to San Donato, where they had remained only two days. The country was delightful in the bright springtime, and Mary had desired to remain longer, but it was impossible, for her father’s official duties took him back to the Eternal City – and besides, to live in the country in spring is not considered fashionable.

On the second night, while they were at the villa, he being alone, she sat with him in the library after dinner watching him rearrange a series of papers in the safe. It was eleven o’clock when he concluded and locked the great green door, then, carrying the key in his hand, he crossed to where she sat, and said in a calm, earnest voice —

“Mary, I know that you will keep a secret if I reveal one to you, won’t you?”

“Most certainly, father,” was her answer, not without some surprise.

“Then put on your cloak and a shawl around your head, my dear. I want to take you out.”

Her curiosity was increased, for although it was moonlight it was late to walk in the country. Nevertheless she obeyed, and together they passed down the steep, narrow bypath through the dark pine woods, deeper and deeper, until before them in the silence the Arno spread shimmering in the moonbeams.

At the river’s edge His Excellency suddenly halted, saying —

“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.

Chapter Sixteen
Father and Daughter

“My dear child, you really must have been dreaming, walking in your sleep!” declared Camillo Morini, looking at his daughter and laughing forcedly.

“I was not, father!” she declared very seriously. “I saw the man take out those bundles of papers I helped you to tie up.”

“But the key! There was only one made, and you know where it is. You saw me do away with it.”

“He has a duplicate.”

The Minister of War shook his head dubiously. What his daughter had told him about Jules Dubard was utterly inconceivable. He could not believe her. Truth to tell, he half believed that she had invented the story as an excuse against her engagement to him. Though so clever and far-seeing as a politician he was often unsuspicious of his enemies. Good-nature was his fault. He believed ill of nobody, and more especially of a man like Dubard, who had already shown himself a friend in several ways, and had rendered him a number of important services.

“And you say that you put a piece of your hairpin in the lock, and that prevented him reopening it on the second night?”

“Yes. Had it not been for that he would have made a complete examination of everything,” she said. “If he had done so, would he have discovered much of importance?”

His Excellency hesitated, and his grey brows contracted.

“Yes, Mary,” he answered, after a brief pause. “He would. There are secrets there – secrets which if revealed might imperil the safety of Italy.”

“And they are in your keeping?”

“They are in my keeping as Minister of War.”

“And some of them affect you – personally? Tell me the truth,” she urged, her gloved hand laid upon the edge of the table.

“They affect me both as Minister and as a loyal subject of His Majesty,” was His Excellency’s response, his face growing a trifle paler.

If the truths contained within that safe really leaked out, the result, he knew, would be irretrievable ruin. Even the contemplation of such a catastrophe caused him to hold his breath.

“Then I assure you, father, that nearly half the documents within have been carefully and methodically examined by this man who poses as your friend.”

“And to tell you the truth, dear, I cannot credit it. He can have no key that would open the door, unless he recovered it from the Arno – which is not likely. They never dredge that part, for it is too deep. Besides, that portion of the river is my own property, and before it could be dredged they would have to give me notice.”

“But a duplicate – could he not possess one?”

“Impossible. That safe was specially manufactured in London for me, and is one of the strongest ever constructed. I had it made specially of treble strength which will resist any drill or wedge – even dynamite would only break the lock and leave the bolts shot. The only manner it could be forced without the key would be to place it in a furnace or apply electrical heat, which would cause the steel to give. The makers specially designed it so that no second key could ever be fitted.”

“Then you disbelieve me?” she said, looking into her father’s face.

“No, I don’t actually disbelieve you, my dear,” he responded, placing his hand tenderly upon hers; “only the whole affair seems so absolutely incredible.”

“Everything is credible in the present situation,” she said, and then went on to relate what Dubard had told her regarding the conspiracy of the Socialists, who intended to hound the Ministry from office.

She was seated in her father’s private cabinet at the Ministry of War, in the large leather-covered chair opposite his big littered table, the chair in which sat so many high officials day after day discussing the military matters of the Italian nation. The double doors were closed, as they always were, against eavesdroppers.

She had, at her own request, managed to have a telegram sent her by him, and with Teresa had arrived in Rome only an hour ago. She had driven straight to the Ministry, and on her arrival Morini had quickly dismissed the general commanding in Sicily, to whom at that moment he was giving audience.

The story his daughter had related seemed utterly incredible. He knew from Ricci of the deep plot against him, but that the safe should really have been opened, and by Dubard of all men, staggered belief. That was why, in his astonishment, he declared that she must have been dreaming.

But in a few moments he became convinced, by her manner, that it was no dream, but an actual fact. Dubard, who had shown himself a friend, had actually pried into what was hidden from all. Why?

What had he discovered? That was the question.

Mary told him of the memoranda, and of the impressions upon the blotting-pad, whereupon he exclaimed quickly —

“I’ll send someone up to San Donato to-night to bring the blotting-pad here. Granati, the handwriting expert, shall examine it.” Then after a brief pause, he bent towards her, saying, “You do not believe that he really discovered what he was in search of?”

“No; he seemed disappointed.”

His Excellency heaved a sigh of relief. If Jules Dubard really had opened the safe, then he feared too well the reason – the motive of the search was plain enough to him.

His teeth set themselves hard, his face blanched at thought of it; and he brushed the scanty grey hair from his forehead with his hand.

And yet it seemed impossible – utterly impossible – that the safe could really have been opened and its contents examined.

“I can’t understand Count Dubard’s reason for accepting our hospitality and then acting as a thief during your absence, father,” the girl remarked, looking him full in the face. “I’ve told mother nothing, as I preferred to come straight to you. That is why I asked you to call me here by telegraph.”

“Quite right, my dear; quite right,” he said. “It would upset your mother unnecessarily.”

“But there is another matter about which I want to talk,” she said, after some hesitation; “something that the count has told me in confidence.”

“Oh! What’s that?” he asked quickly.

“It concerns yourself, father. He says that there is a deep political plot against you – to secure the downfall of the Cabinet and to bring certain unfounded charges against you personally.”

Her father smiled quite calmly.

“That news, my dear, is scarcely fresh,” he replied. “For twenty-five years my political enemies have been seeking to oust me from every office I’ve ever held. Therefore that they should be doing so now is only natural.”

“I know! I know!” she said, with earnest apprehension. “But he says that the plot is so formed that its result will reflect upon you personally,” and then she went on to describe exactly what Dubard had told her.

His Excellency, nervously toying with the quill, listened, and as he did so reflected upon what Ricci had already told him.

How was it, he wondered, that the Frenchman, who was outside the inner ring of Italian politics, knew all this? He must have some secret source of knowledge. That was plain.

Morini looked into his daughter’s great brown eyes, and read the deep anxiety there. Within his own heart he was full of apprehension for the future lest the Socialists might defeat the Government; yet, with the tact of the old political hand, he betrayed no concern before her. What she told him, however, revealed certain things that he had not hitherto suspected, and rendered the outlook far blacker than he had before regarded it.

“The count has also told me that there is a charge of treason against Captain Solaro.”

Instantly her father’s face changed.

“Well?” he snapped.

“The captain is innocent,” she declared. “He must be. He would never betray the military secrets of his country.”

“That is a matter which does not concern you, Mary,” he exclaimed quickly. “He has been tried by court-martial and been dismissed the army.”

“But you surely will not allow an innocent man to suffer, father!” she urged in a voice of quick reproach.

“It is not a matter that concerns either of us, my dear,” he answered in a hard tone. “He has been found guilty – that is sufficient.”

She was silent, for suddenly she recollected what the count had said, namely, that any effort on her part to prove poor Solaro’s innocence must reflect upon her father, whose enemies would use the fact to prove that Italy had been betrayed with the connivance of the Minister of War.

She sighed. She had suspicions – grave ones; but she knew that at least Felice Solaro had been made the scapegoat of some cunning plot, and that his sentence was unjust. Yet what could she do in such circumstances? She was powerless. She could only remain patient and wait – wait, perhaps, for the final blow to fall upon her father and her house! A silence fell, broken only by the low ticking of the marble clock and the measured tramp of the sentry down in the sun-baked courtyard.

Her father sighed, rose from his chair, and with his hands behind his back paced anxiously up and down the room.

“Mary!” he exclaimed suddenly, in a changed voice, hoarsely in earnest, “if the secrets hidden in that safe have actually fallen into the hands of my enemies, then I must resign from office?” His face was now blanched to the lips, for all his self-possession seemed to have deserted him in an instant as the ghastly truth became revealed. “I know – I know too well – how cleverly the conspiracy has been formed, but I never dreamed that that safe could be opened, and the truth known. No,” he said in a low voice of despair, his chin sunk upon his breast; “it would be better to resign, and fly from Italy.”

His daughter looked at him in silence and surprise. She had never seen him plunged in such despair. A bond of sympathy had always existed between father and daughter ever since her infancy.

“Then you dare not face your enemies if they are actually in possession of what is contained in the safe?” she said slowly, rising and placing her hand tenderly upon her father’s shoulder. She realised for the first time that her father, the man whom she had trusted so implicitly since her childhood, held some guilty secret.

“No, my dear, I dare not,” was his reply, placing his trembling hand upon her arm.

“But you are unaware of how much knowledge Count Dubard has obtained,” she pointed out.

“Sufficient in any case to cause my ruin,” replied the grey-haired Minister of War. “That is, of course, if he is not after all my friend.”

“But he is your friend, father,” she was compelled to exclaim, in order to give him courage, for she had never in her life seen him so overcome.

“Those midnight investigations are, as you have said, a curious way of demonstrating friendship,” he remarked blankly. “No,” he added in a dry, hard tone. “To-day is the beginning of the end. These are my last days of office, Mary. The vote may be taken in the Chamber any day, and then – ” and his eyes wandered involuntarily to that drawer in his writing-table wherein reposed his revolver, which, alas! more than once of late he had handled so fondly.

“And after that – what?” his daughter asked anxiously.

But only a deep sigh ran through the lofty room, and then she realised that her father’s kindly eyes were filled with tears.