nothing to say.”
“You don’t promise to assist me!” he exclaimed. “You don’t declare your readiness to unite the groups again in our favour!”
“Because I fear it would be a useless task,” responded the other in a calm, mechanical voice.
“A useless task!” gasped the elder man, whose face was blanched. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that matters have assumed an ugly appearance,” replied the deputy. “Even the journals who have received so much money from you are silent when they ought to be loudest in your eulogy. They are evidently awaiting the advent of their new masters.”
“Then you actually anticipate a catastrophe?” exclaimed Morini hoarsely, halting before the man who had rendered him so many valuable services – the clever, unscrupulous adventurer who had several times turned the parliamentary tide in his favour.
Vito nodded slowly, his bearded face grave and hard set.
“If what you say is really true regarding Angelo, then I am fully aware of the great peril in which I stand,” the Minister exclaimed at last, his voice faltering in his agitation. “Borselli will hesitate at nothing in order to gain power.”
“Ah, I told you so a year ago, my dear Camillo,” was the deputy’s reply. “But you would not listen. He was your friend, you said – as though there was such a thing as friendship in any of the ministries.”
“I have been deceived,” admitted the other in a low voice.
A silence fell between the pair, until the deputy suddenly said hesitatingly —
“I suppose Angelo could make some rather awkward revelations – eh?”
The Minister slowly nodded.
“H’m. I thought as much from what I gathered in Milan. He would denounce you, and by reason of his big Socialist following he would come out with clean hands. He has laid his plans well, without a doubt. Sirena, the Socialist deputy for Pesaro, told me, in confidence, all that is intended.”
“They mean to strike a blow at me?”
“Yes, by criticising the army, and by bringing forward some curious story about the plans of the fortress of Tresenta in the Alps being sold to France. Do you know anything about it?”
“Yes. The plans have unfortunately been given to France by a captain named Solaro, who has been dismissed the army and sent to prison. So they intend to make political capital out of that, do they?”
“It seems so,” was the other’s answer.
Morini slowly repaced the room, his chin upon his breast, deep in thought, the dead silence being broken only by his footsteps upon the marble floor.
“Borselli has formed a plot against me – a deep, dastardly plot!” he exclaimed in a desperate tone, halting again suddenly, a determined look upon his grey features. “He intends that I shall fall. But you, Vito, can save me, if you will – you know you can. With a little of this,” and he rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, “you can unite the groups as you did before, and show the country that the Minister of War still possesses the confidence of the kingdom.”
“I doubt it,” answered Ricci dubiously.
“But you will not desert me now?” implored His Excellency, laying his hand firmly upon the deputy’s shoulder. “Recollect the past, Vito. Remember the day when you, a lieutenant, prevented my horse throwing me at the manoeuvres in the Chianti. That was long ago, but both of us have had cause to congratulate ourselves upon that meeting.”
Ricci nodded. He recollected well how the Minister, then only a few months in office, had allowed him to resign from the army and complete his studies as an advocate, and how, by a clever stroke of political jobbery, he had been elected deputy for Asti, in order that he should serve the Minister as his secret agent in the Camera. He had become rich in a few years, owing to the various grants and concessions His Excellency had made to him, yet somehow his personal extravagance kept him always poor, always in want of money. He feared to calculate how much of the secret service funds had already found its way into his pocket, and yet with wily ingenuity he was there again for a grant, not from the secret service fund – for he knew well that the sum voted for the present year was already exhausted – but from Camillo Morini’s own private purse.
Vito Ricci, with all the outward appearance of a gentleman, was utterly unscrupulous. He worked in the Camera for the master who paid him best – a fact which Morini knew too well. If the Socialists were prepared to pay his price, then the man whom he had trained so cleverly and promoted to place and power would calmly throw him over, and hound him down with just as great an enthusiasm as he now supported him.
“I suppose,” he went on at last, “it is, as usual, a matter of price with you – eh, Vito?”
“Well, I must live, just as you must,” responded the other with a faint smile as he discerned how terrified the Minister had become at the information he had just given him. “I have no private income, and therefore must make money somehow.”
“You have made plenty of it,” the other remarked. “Only three months ago you had fifty thousand lire out of the secret service fund.”
“And I am now badly in want of an exactly similar amount,” the deputy declared.
“Ah! so that is the price – eh? Fifty thousand?”
“Yes. But of course I cannot guarantee success for that sum. It may cost more. I have to bribe the leaders of each of the groups in the Chamber, and I flatter myself that I am the only man who can work them in favour of the Ministry.”
“I admit that, my dear Vito. You are a marvel of tact and cunning. What a pity you did not enter the Diplomatic service! But the price. It is too high. I can’t really afford to pay so much. Ah! if you knew how heavy my personal expenses are, and how – ”
“Of course,” the other cried, interrupting. “You made the same excuse last time, but you paid these screaming hounds all the same. It is surely useless to waste breath upon argument. The facts are quite plain, as I’ve already told you. If you pay for triumph you will probably receive it; if you don’t, you must fall, and Angelo Borselli will be given your portfolio. Pardon me for saying it, Camillo, but of late you have lived with your eyes shut. I have watched, and I have observed certain things. Recently you have held me aloof from you, just at a moment when I could be of greatest service. This, I confess, has hurt me. I believed you reposed confidence in me, but it seems that you mistrust me.”
“I mistrust all blackmailers,” was the Minister’s quick reply, his dark eyes flashing at the speaker.
“Because you are one yourself,” the other retorted quickly, with a grin. “You yourself taught me the gentle art of blackmailing. But no! do not let us revile each other. Rather let us face the critical situation. I tell you that you are blind – otherwise you would realise how cleverly and with what devilish ingenuity your power is being undermined. You must bribe the groups – you must pay the sum I ask. It is your duty, not only for your own sake, but for that of your family – the signora and the Signorina Mary.”
The Minister of War stood undecided. Mention of his family brought home to him the terrible responsibility upon him. Ruin, exposure, condemnation, disgrace, all stared him in the face. Yet by paying what his creature demanded he could once again steer clear of the shoals of the stormy parliamentary waters,
