"And then?" asked Morini almost involuntarily, as he stood listening to the story.
"I was not thirsty myself, so I put the flask back into the holster, and we rode on again, laughing together and enjoying the glorious panorama at our feet. Half an hour later, however, my companion complained of queer pains in his head and giddiness, which he attributed to the sun, and pulling up he dismounted. We were then in a lonely spot in a district utterly unknown to me. The general grew worse, being seized by strange cramping pains in the stomach and a curious twitching of the face. I gave him some water from a spring close by, and bathed his head, but he grew worse, and seemed to lapse into a state of coma.
Suddenly he opened his eyes, and motioning to me that he wished to speak, he gasped faintly, `Tell them I did it because those Jews were pressing me--I regret it--regret--but it is useless!" Then after a pause he managed to articulate, `My wife!--my dear wife--my love to her, M"sieur Macbean--my love to her--I--I"--Then his jaw dropped, and I found him dead upon my arm! This fatal seizure appalled me. I shouted, but no one heard. I was miles and miles from civilisation in the centre of the wildest district of the Alps, therefore I covered the dead man"s face with his handkerchief, tethered his horse, and rode back ten miles or so to a little village we had pa.s.sed. The general was brought back to Mentone that night, and at the Villa Puget the scene was a sad and tragic one. I gave poor madame her husband"s dying message, but his words about the Jews puzzled her. She could not understand them in the least. It was a mystery."
"They were words invented by you," declared Dubard in a hard tone.
"Tell these gentlemen the truth! It was you who gave the poor fellow the cognac--you who poisoned him!"
"I gave him the brandy, I admit," exclaimed Macbean quickly, "but I swear I was unaware that it was poisoned!"
"You filled it from the bottle in your room. Now you have gone so far, tell the whole truth."
"I am not afraid," Macbean went on boldly. "On the night when the body of the general was brought home you came with Solaro to my room, locked the door, and charged me with administering poison--although three doctors had seen him, and as they had all previously treated him for a malady which they knew might terminate fatally on too violent exercise, they had decided that no post-mortem examination was necessary. Your allegation astounded me, but you asked for the key of the cupboard wherein I kept the bottle of brandy. There was some remaining, as well as the remains of that mixed with water in the flask. As I denied that I had poisoned him you both urged that, in satisfaction, I should seal both bottle and flask and submit them to some a.n.a.lyst in Paris. This I willingly did, entirely unsuspecting any plot. I packed them in a box, and myself saw them despatched."
"And the a.n.a.lyst"s report is here!" exclaimed Dubard, waving the paper triumphantly before the speaker"s eyes. "It proves that you deliberately poisoned General Sazarac, while Solaro, if he were here, could prove further that he found in your writing-case the draft which you stole from the dead man"s pocket?"
"I know only too well the circ.u.mstantial evidence that was against me,"
said Macbean, addressing Morini. "I had been the victim of a clever and ingenious plot in which the unfortunate officer had lost his life. But why? There seemed no motive whatever. I returned to England a suspected man, and from that day I did not come face to face with Dubard until I recognised him last year driving on the Rugby road, and heard to my amazement that he was engaged to your daughter Mary. Ever since then I have desired to re-encounter this man, and to clear myself of the terrible charge he brings against me."
"And how do you propose to do that?" inquired His Excellency, astonished at the entirely new complexion placed upon that tragic affair which had caused him so much mental anxiety and so many sleepless nights.
"I can only declare my complete innocence. I was, no doubt, the agent who administered the fatal cognac, but I certainly was ignorant of it, and would never have poisoned the man who had showed me so many kindnesses."
"Then I think it is only in the interests of justice if this report of the a.n.a.lyst is given into the hands of the Paris police," remarked the Sicilian, who had remained silent, but whose active mind nevertheless had been at work to discern some means of effectually closing Macbean"s mouth.
The young Englishman started. He had not expected such a suggestion.
He foresaw the difficulty of proving his innocence when such witnesses as Solaro and Dubard were against him.
"For the present, we will leave that aside," said the Minister, in as quiet a voice as he could. "My first duty, as father of my child, is to investigate this allegation of Macbean"s," and he touched the bell. To the man who answered his summons he said in English in a determined tone--
"Ask Miss Mary to kindly step down here for one moment. I desire to see her without a minute"s delay. Say that I have some urgent news for her."
"Very good, your Excellency." And the door was closed again.
Dubard and Borselli exchanged uneasy glances; but a dead silence had fallen between the four men--a silence that was broken by the sound of wheels out on the gravelled drive. There were lots of coming and going in that bustling day, wedding guests arriving, and the bride"s luggage being despatched, so as to meet her in London before they left for Paris on the following morning.
The pause was painful. Macbean looked at the pair who had for so long been united hand and glove against the Minister, and recognised the spirit of murder in their glance. They would have killed him had they dared, for they knew too well that he had now revealed to the Minister the actual truth. Borselli, who had enticed him to Rome hoping to ensure his secrecy over the Sazarac affair, had placed his own head in the lion"s mouth by so doing. It was seldom he made an error in his clever schemes, but he knew that he had done so on this occasion, and that it would require all his ingenuity and cunning to escape from such a compromising situation.
The minutes pa.s.sed, but neither spoke a word. Each man feared to utter a sentence lest it should be seized upon and misconstrued, while the Minister himself, silent and distinguished-looking, glanced from one to the other, and waited for his beloved daughter to enter and to speak.
CHAPTER FORTY.
THE STORY OF CAPTAIN SOLARO.
At last there was a light footstep out in the hall. The door opened, and she entered, radiant in her wonderful bridal gown and orange-blossoms, her long sweeping train behind, but without her veil, of course, her beautiful face revealed in all its haggard pallor.
Dubard sprang forward to welcome her; but ere he could take her hand he fell back in utter dismay, for behind her, silhouetted in the doorway, stood the figure of a man in a grey felt hat and a light overcoat.
"Great heavens!" gasped Macbean, who at the same moment recognised the new-comer. "Solaro! Felice Solaro!"
"Yes," replied the other, in a quiet, distinct voice, as he came into the room behind the Minister"s daughter in her rustling silks. "I am fortunately here, not by His Excellency"s decree, but by the generous clemency of the king himself, who, on the occasion of his birthday, three days ago, and in consequence of a pet.i.tion of my family, gave me my liberty with others. I heard what was in progress, and so I have travelled here to ascertain the truth, and to clear myself of the base and scandalous charges those men who stand there have brought against me," and he raised his finger and pointed to the Sicilian and the Frenchman, both of whose faces had, on the instant of recognising him, become entirely changed.
"It seems, signorina," he said in Italian, turning his pale, emaciated face to Mary, who stood in the centre of the room utterly dumbfounded at the dramatic scene, "it seems that by good fortune I am here in order to save you, your father, and the Signor Macbean from these two men who have so very cleverly plotted your father"s ruin, your own marriage, the disgrace of the Signor Englishman, and my own imprisonment."
"Do you allege that they conspired to obtain the conviction against you?" cried the Minister, amazed.
"Listen, and I will tell you everything. Then you yourself shall take what steps against them that you desire."
"I shall not remain to hear that traitor"s insults!" cried the Sicilian, moving quickly towards the door; but Solaro, noticing his action, stepped back, locked the door behind him, and placed the key in his pocket, saying, "You will remain, general. You have to answer to me."
Then, after a brief pause, he commenced--
"It may be news to you all, except the Under-secretary, that Jules Dubard is not a member of the French n.o.bility at all, but a person who, while posing as a count, is one of the secret agents of the French Minister of War. It was for this reason that he desired to be married in England, as the unwelcome truth would have been shown upon his papers."
"A spy!" gasped the bride, standing open-mouthed on the eve of her deliverance.
"That is the vulgar term for such persons," Solaro said. "It happened about four years ago that Borselli and he met, and the former, finding him a shrewd and clever adventurer, resolved to make use of him to gain a triumph over the Minister Morini. Borselli had also met General Sazarac at the Jockey Club in Paris, and had won from him several large sums at cards, accepting from him a number of promissory notes. Having done this, he discovered, to his delight, that Sazarac was actually in command of the Alpine frontier of France, therefore he proceeded with slow deliberation to win over Dubard from the French service, by promises of position when the Minister Morini was overthrown, and to unfold a plot which is a good specimen of his amazing ingenuity.
Briefly, it was to place the promissory notes in the hands of some unscrupulous Jews in Antwerp, in order that they should press for payment, and when they did so, Dubard, who was attached to Sazarac"s division of the French army, should suggest a course out of the difficulty--namely, to sell to the Italian Ministry of War certain plans of the frontier defences which we were very anxious to obtain. This was done. Sazarac, in desperate straits for money, listened to his friend Dubard"s evil counsel, and agreed to allow the plans of the whole of the defences from Mount Pelvoux to the sea to be copied for a sum of two hundred thousand francs. These were the secrets which we had desired for many years to know, and the first I knew of the matter was a summons to the Ministry in Rome, where I saw Borselli, who introduced me to Dubard, and instructed me, because I spoke French perfectly and was a good draughtsman, to go to Mentone, take quarters at the Hotel National, and make copies in secret of certain doc.u.ments which Dubard would hand me from time to time."
"You were in our service!" declared the Sicilian.
"Certainly," he answered; and then proceeding he said, "I went to Mentone, and commenced the work of copying those plans which the general allowed Dubard to abstract from the safe at headquarters and bring to me in secret. While there we both became on friendly terms with the Englishman Macbean, who was secretary to the French general"s brother-in-law, and who was of course in entire ignorance of what was in progress. After about two months, during which Dubard and I led the life of wealthy idlers on the Riviera, the copying was complete, I had sent the last batch of tracings to Rome by the official of the Ministry who came specially to convey them, and was awaiting further instructions, when one evening, after we had seen Macbean and the general going out for a ride together, Dubard entered the hotel and said he had heard in a cafe the startling report of the general"s sudden death. We at once went round to the Villa Puget, and there sure enough he was lying dead, with madame inconsolable with grief. The doctors had declared death due to natural causes, as he had long been an invalid, and had been warned against riding too far. But Dubard took me aside in the garden and told me that he held a distinct suspicion that the general had been poisoned. The sum agreed to be paid for the plans had, he said, been paid on the previous day, and probably he had some of it upon him, which might serve as a motive for the crime. He suggested poison, and declared that he had suspicion of Macbean. At first I refused to entertain such a theory, but he persisted in it, and at his suggestion I accompanied him when he openly charged the Englishman with the crime. Macbean at once offered us every facility for the a.n.a.lysing of the cognac and the contents of his flask, sealed them up with his own seal, and packed them before our eyes, addressing them to a well-known chemist in the Rue Rivoli in Paris, and I despatched them. The report came back that there was an a.r.s.enical poison in both the bottle and the flask. It seemed that Macbean had tried to bluff us to the very last, but the most d.a.m.ning fact was that on searching his effects I discovered a draft on the Credit Lyonnais for fifty thousand francs from a firm in Genoa, but really emanating from our Ministry of War, and part of the agreed payment for the plans. This was concealed in the flap of his writing-case."
"So the natural conclusion was that Mr Macbean was a poisoner!"
remarked Mary, standing dumbfounded.
"Of course," he said. "I certainly believed that he was, and that he was only allowed his liberty through Dubard"s clemency, until about three months after the affair, when Dubard and I being together at the Grand Hotel in Venice, my curiosity was one day aroused, and I pried into his despatch-box during his absence. Among other papers I found this letter," he said, producing one from his pocket. "It is undated and unsigned, but it suggests that if some secret means were employed to induce S"s (meaning Sazarac, of course) fatal illness, two ends would be achieved. France would never suspect that he had sold the plans, and the payment of two hundred thousand francs need not be made."
"Fifty thousand francs of that money Borselli handed back to me," the Minister admitted.
"And he kept the remainder himself," declared Solaro. "This letter is in his handwriting--and is in itself evidence that he instigated the general"s death, and that this man, who is his accomplice, carried it out so cleverly that the whole of the evidence pointed to Macbean.
Indeed, this is proved by recent events, and by the manner in which the pair have sought to close my mouth regarding the ugly affair. Last summer I was suddenly arrested, and was amazed to discover how very neatly the man Dubard, whom I thought my friend, had had me watched in Paris and in Bologna, had bogus plans of the Tresenta prepared and sent to Filomena Nodari, and how these and other doc.u.ments--one purporting to be the mobilisation scheme itself--pa.s.sed through that woman"s hands into those of a French agent. Evidence--foul lies, all of it--was given against me; I was condemned as a traitor--I, the man who had copied all the plans of France in the interests of my own country--and then I realised how cleverly Borselli and Dubard, the ex-agent of France, were acting in conjunction, and that whoever was guilty of poor Sazarac"s a.s.sa.s.sination it certainly was not the Englishman. I had, before my arrest, mentioned the death of Sazarac casually to Dubard, and inquired of the whereabouts of Macbean. It was this remark of mine which apparently aroused his suspicions, and which caused both he and Borselli to secure my imprisonment for a twofold reason: first, to ensure my silence; and secondly, so as to give the Socialists a weapon by which they might hound your Excellency from office for countenancing a traitor. This was the only way in which your Excellency"s popularity and power could be undermined; but so craftily did they go to work, and so cleverly was every detail of the conspiracy thought out, even to the opening of your safe at San Donato with a key made from the impression of the original key taken by Borselli two years before. You made away with the key, hoping to conceal the evidences of your peculations; but their ingenuity was simply marvellous, for they were playing with the safety and prosperity of a kingdom."
"But General Borselli asked me recently to induce my father to release you," said Mary.
"In order to still further incite the popular feeling against His Excellency. He probably believed that I dared not denounce him as the instigator of the a.s.sa.s.sination of Sazarac, and that with my release his _coup_ could be effected against your father after your marriage with his accomplice. It is, indeed, intended to strike the blow at the first sitting of the Chamber next month."
"Then I think we are now fully prepared to combat it," remarked the tall, grey-haired Minister in a cool tone, as he glanced at the Sicilian. "When I received the fifty thousand francs of the sum which was to have been paid from the secret service fund to General Sazarac, I was led to believe that, owing to a certain plan not being forthcoming, only half the sum had been paid to him. I had no knowledge of a tragedy until long afterwards, when, to my horror, I discovered for myself that there had been some foul play, and that I was morally responsible as an accessory."
"I am not to blame altogether," declared the Frenchman desperately.
"Borselli sent me the cognac from Rome already prepared, and according to his directions I subst.i.tuted the bottle in the Englishman"s room and at the same time abstracted the general"s flask from his holster. I also concealed, at Angelo"s suggestion, the banker"s draft in Macbean"s writing-case."
"You scoundrel!" cried George, turning upon the white-faced criminal whom his well-beloved had so narrowly escaped. "And you, Borselli, have sent your spy, that woman Nodari, to investigate Mr Morgan-Mason"s papers because you fear he holds something that incriminates you?"
"Silence!" cried the Minister, holding up his hand. "There must be no recriminations here in my house. I have been misled by Borselli as to this man"s position and antecedents. The wedding will not take place, after these scandalous revelations, but there is still one duty before me, as Minister of War," and turning to his writing-table he took two sheets of paper, and upon each he scribbled some hurried words. One he handed to Borselli, who glanced at it and threw it from him with an imprecation.
It was his dismissal from the office of Under-Secretary of War.
The other, which he handed to Solaro, caused him to cry aloud with joy, for it was his reinstatement in the army and a declaration of his innocence of the crime of which he had been charged.