Behind the Throne. Le Queux William

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 Solaro’s 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 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.

      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