William Le Queux - Behind the Throne

“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 man’s 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-night’s Gazette , and, General Valentini,” he added meaningly, turning to the stern old officer who had writhed beneath the civilian’s 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 Minister’s private room, followed by his general, who merely saluted in stiff silence, his scabbard trailing upon the marble.

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 Minister’s 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 o’clock 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.