Chapter Thirty Nine. Revelations.

At that moment, however, the door suddenly opened, causing the three men to turn and glance, when, to their surprise, they saw, standing before them, the man whose name had just been mentioned. Dubard held his breath. Macbean’s face was bloodless, his lips quivered, his hands were clenched, his whole countenance seemed to have altered in those moments of tension and determination, and as he closed the door behind him and advanced boldly into the room, trying to speak in a cool voice, he addressed the Minister—

“Your Excellency, the tragedy of this marriage must not take place—for your own sake, as well as for your daughter’s.”

In an instant the three men were upon their feet, electrified by the Englishman’s startling words.

“What do you mean?” asked Morini, looking at him amazed.

“Yes,” cried Dubard, stepping forward angrily. “Let us hear what this fellow means.”

“You wish to hear,” exclaimed Macbean, facing the Frenchman boldly. “Then listen! I allege that Miss Morini has been forced into this marriage by you—and by that man there,” he added, pointing to the sallow-faced Sicilian. “If you doubt me,” he said, turning to the Minister of War, “ask her yourself. This man Dubard made a promise to her that, in exchange for her hand, he would prevent the crisis which Borselli had arranged to bring ruin and disgrace upon you. You will recollect the mysterious letter received by Montebruno when he was already upon his feet in the Chamber. That letter was sent by your enemy, Borselli, at Dubard’s instigation, because your poor daughter had consented to sacrifice herself in order to save you. It is my duty to tell you this, your Excellency. You have been pleased to take me into your service, to treat me almost as a confidential friend, and it is my duty therefore to speak the truth and to save Miss Mary from falling the victim of this man?”

“Victim!” cried Dubard quickly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you intend to marry her, and having done so, your friend here, General Angelo Borselli, will strike his blow at His Excellency—a merciless blow, that will crush and ruin him.”

“Bah!” exclaimed the Sicilian. “All this is a mere fiction! He loves your daughter himself, my dear Camillo. There is lots of gossip about it in Rome.”

“During my employment in the Ministry I have kept both ears and eyes open,” Macbean went on. “I know well with what devilish ingenuity you have plotted against your chief, how you have forced him deeper and deeper into financial intrigue, in order that your revelations may be the greater, and how, in order to propitiate your accomplice Dubard, you have stayed your hand until this marriage is effected.”

“Basta!” cried the Sicilian. “I will not be insulted by a common employee like you!”

“Nor I!” exclaimed Dubard, his face white with passion, as he turned to Macbean. “My affairs are no concern of yours—they concern myself and the lady who is to become my wife. I am amazed that you, of all men, should dare to come forward and make these unfounded charges against us. Hitherto I have kept my silence, but as you have sought exposure I will speak the truth. Then your employer shall judge as to which of us is worthy of confidence, and which—”

“I make no plea for myself,” declared George, quickly interrupting him. “I merely intervene on behalf of a broken and defenceless woman—the woman you have so cleverly entrapped.”

But Dubard only laughed drily, and said—

“Very well. Let His Excellency listen to you—and afterwards to me.”

“Then let me speak first,” cried the Englishman desperately. “Let me tell you myself the truth of the Sazarac affair.”

Borselli’s face fell, and Morini’s countenance changed colour in an instant. Mention of that name was sufficient to cause both men quick apprehension.

“You need not do that,” the Sicilian managed to say. “But I will,” Macbean went on. “You shall hear me. I know the truth is an unwelcome one, but lest others shall tell you any garbled version of it, I will be frank and fearless with you. In the winter three years ago I was taken by Mr Morgan-Mason, whose secretary I was, to stay with General Felix Sazarac, whose wife was my employer’s elder sister, the younger sister having married a Mr Fitzroy. The general, who was in command of the French garrisons on the Alpine frontier, lived at the Villa Puget, at Mentone, and at the Hôtel National there was staying his friend Dubard—the man before you. We became friendly, for the general often invited Dubard to dine at the villa, and after a time there arrived in Mentone at the same hotel an acquaintance of the count’s—a young Italian gentleman of means named Solaro, who was also introduced at the Villa Puget, and who also became one of our intimate friends. Curiously enough, however, the general did not seem to care for Solaro’s company, yet he frequently invited me to ride out with him, and gave me good mounts from the barracks. Well,” he went on, after a slight pause, “all went merrily for over two months, until one day, when Mr Morgan-Mason had gone to Marseilles, the general invited me to ride with him up into the mountains to the fortress above Saint Martin Lantosque, which he had to inspect. The morning was a bright one, with all the prospects of a blazing day, and we first rode across the plain behind Mentone, and then began to ascend the rough mountain paths into the Alps. We had ridden some fourteen miles or so, when the general suddenly exclaimed, ‘That rascally servant of mine has forgotten my flask again!’ ‘Never mind,’ I called to him. ‘I have mine. I filled it with cognac and water before starting.’ ‘That’s good!’ he laughed.—‘We shall want a drink before long. It’s going to be a blazer to-day!’ And then we toiled on and on, up the steep rough paths that wound higher and higher over the mountains. Just before midday, however, the general pulled up, removed his cap, and declaring that he was thirsty, took a long pull at the flask I handed to him.”

“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 passed. 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 analyst in Paris. This I willingly did, entirely unsuspecting any plot. I packed them in a box, and myself saw them despatched.”

“And the analyst’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 circumstantial 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 analyst 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 passed, 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.