Part 8

Ferretti was naturally more inclined to trust me than were the others, thanks to my London friend’s recommendation. I was, therefore, not surprised to receive a call from him the next day, and to find that he was at last going to show his hand.

‘It is right, is it not,’ he began, ‘that you are prepared to undertake the removal of one of our enemies, provided you are satisfied that you are doing good to the cause?’

‘That is all I ask,’ I responded; ‘Humbert or another, what does it matter to me?’

‘You don’t consider that the fact that Humbert has taken a leading part against us marks him out for destruction?’

‘No, I don’t; I don’t believe he is any worse than the others.’

‘Very well; admitting that, for the sake of argument; if I were to prove to you that Humbert’s death would benefit the cause specially in other ways, what would you say?’

‘If I believed that, I should most likely consent.’

‘Good! That is what I expected. Now you understand that what I am going to tell you must be in the very greatest confidence.’

I nodded.

‘The removal of Humbert will put funds at our disposal for other work.’

At last I was on the trail. Carefully concealing my excitement under an appearance of natural curiosity, I inquired: ‘How is that, comrade?’

‘You must not ask too much. I have only got authority to tell you that it is so. A sum of money will be ours as soon as Humbert is dead.’

‘And you will not tell me how or why?’

Ferretti hesitated.

‘It has been promised us--guaranteed to us, in fact--by one who has reasons of his own for wanting to see Humbert out of the way.’

‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ I objected. ‘It sounds as though we were being hired as private assassins.’

Ferretti’s face fell.

‘I am afraid I cannot tell you anything more without consulting others,’ he said slowly. ‘I will swear to you, if you like, that it is not a case of private revenge. The person behind us has public reasons for his conduct, though they are not the same as ours.’

This statement threw me into a brown study. What public reasons could any one possibly have for the removal of the King of Italy? The Garibaldians? No, they were not assassins--besides, they would not have come to America to get a suitable instrument. There were plenty nearer at hand.

‘Listen to me,’ I said at length. ‘When I took a vow to rid the world of a crowned head at the risk of my own life, I did not undertake to become a blind tool in the hands of any one else. I owe no obedience to you or our comrades. I say what I said last night--convince me that I ought to kill Humbert, and I will. But it is no good if you can’t trust me. Why should I trust you with my life, when you won’t trust me with your reasons for wanting this King out of the way?’

Ferretti was staggered.

‘I will tell the others what you say,’ he declared. ‘For my part, I think your demand is reasonable.’

He left me, but did not come back. Days passed, and no further overture was made to me. On the contrary, the lame Swiss began to talk to me about the other victims I had pointed out, and to encourage me to fix on one of them.

I was able to guess what had happened. The four were looking for a more docile tool.

I sent off a third wire:

‘_I have lost touch with the conspiracy. From this moment I no longer answer for your life._’

This warning was not even shown to the doomed King.

I now adopted a course which I had put off as long as possible, on account of the risk involved. I secretly engaged a second lodging at a distance, where I could disguise myself as I pleased, and began to shadow the Anarchist leaders.

It was a dangerous game to play, because such men were accustomed to find themselves the subject of police surveillance, and would probably be quick to detect anything of the sort. My only chance of success lay in the fact that I already possessed so much knowledge of their movements as to make the task of watching them a comparatively easy one.

I had come to the conclusion that the real head of the group was the crippled Swiss. This man kept a small shop, chiefly for repairs, in the heart of the Italian quarter. I made up as a Corsican, to account for any imperfections of accent, and hung about the neighbourhood, begging.

Ferretti, Peters, and The Bear were frequent visitors, and the simpleton Bresci called once or twice, but for some days I saw nothing that I could fix upon as having a suspicious look. I remembered, however, that the lame watchmaker had always been missing from the gatherings at the club on Saturday nights, and I looked forward to making some discovery when the end of the week arrived.

I was not disappointed, though I had to wait so long that I almost gave up hope. Just as the clock struck ten a tall, swarthy figure brushed right by me, and slipped into the little shop. The moment after, the lame man came out into the street, and began putting up the shutters.

It was necessary to act promptly. I stepped up to the Swiss and whispered my assumed name in his ear.

‘Lebrun! You!’ he ejaculated in astonishment. ‘I thought you were one of the police.’

‘It is the other way about,’ I answered. ‘The police have been after me; that is why I have had to disguise myself. But let us come inside, I want to talk to you.’

As I expected, he tried to prevent me going in.

‘No, not there. I have some one on business.’

‘Business of the cause?’ I demanded.

‘Yes--no, private business.’

‘I will wait in the shop till he is gone,’ I returned, and pushed my way through the door, the cripple following.

The tall, dark figure started to its feet in evident alarm as we entered. I saw a brown hand glide towards the bosom, an action which told me that I was not dealing with a European. In the dim light of the little shop I could not fix the stranger’s nationality more precisely. He did not seem to be an Arab; he was above the grade of a negro. If I had met him in Algiers I should have called him a Sudanese, a convenient term for the unknown races of Africa.

The situation was a complicated one. The watchmaker, it was evident, did not more than half believe my account of myself; I could not tell that the stranger really had any connection with the mystery I wanted to unravel; and he must have been utterly confounded by my intrusion.

‘Is your friend one of us? Does he know anything about the business you put before me the other day?’ I asked of the Swiss in Italian.

Before the Swiss could do more than give me a warning gesture, the unknown had addressed him in the sort of Italian which forms the common speech of seamen in the Levant.

‘Is this the man you thought you could persuade to undertake the work?’

The watchmaker was fairly cornered.

‘Go inside and I will speak to you,’ he said to the swarthy outlander; then he added, speaking in quick French to me--‘I must have some explanation with you before I trust you again.’

‘That will not do for me,’ I returned, sticking to my Italian and trying to render it intelligible to the unknown. ‘You have asked me to do a dangerous work on behalf of the cause; very well, I am ready to do it, but first I insist on knowing who is going to provide the sinews of war. That is fair, it seems to me.’

This time the stranger’s tone became peremptory.

‘Why do not you wish me to speak to this man?’ he asked.

The shopkeeper scowled at both of us by turns.

‘Because I don’t know that he is right,’ he muttered.

‘How do I know that you are right?’ I retorted. ‘It appears you are going to have a big price for this business, and you want me to shut my eyes and not ask what becomes of the money.’

The Swiss wrung his hands in despair. I believe that he was quite honest, and that he wished for the money in order to spread his atrocious principles; while his distrust of me was only too well founded.

I addressed myself boldly to the unknown.

‘I am your man, I believe. Tell me who you are, and why you want this job carried out, and I will undertake it. As for the money, you may hand that over to my comrade here, as long as I know how much it is.’

This last offer turned the balance. The Swiss himself proposed that we should come into the back shop and talk things over in confidence.

When we were all three seated together, it was the watchmaker who gave me the long-sought explanation in a few words.

‘This man is an Abyssinian. He has come here on behalf of the Emperor Menelik.’

‘Menelik!’ I exclaimed in astonishment. ‘What has he got to do with us?’

‘Nothing directly; but if you have read the papers you must know that Humbert was the moving spirit in the Abyssinian war. He made peace after Adowa, under pressure from the Crown Prince, who told him the dynasty was in danger. But Menelik believes that the King is secretly preparing for a fresh attack. He is in league with the British, who are advancing from the Sudan. The Abyssinians want to clear the Italians out of their country altogether, and they can never do that while Humbert is alive. That is how it stands, isn’t it?’

This last question was addressed to Menelik’s agent. The Abyssinian answered by a smile that showed his formidable white teeth.

‘The King of Italy is the enemy of Abyssinia. The King of Italy must die. If an Abyssinian tries to kill him, he will be suspected, and stopped; therefore he must be killed by a European. The Negus has sent me to find a European who will do this for money. I have been in Italy and France, and there they told me that it was best for me to apply to the followers of your religion, which teaches that all kings ought to be killed. Is it not so? Therefore I come here, to the headquarters of your sect. If one of you will accept the task, on that day I pay him in the money of this country one thousand dollars. On the day I hear that King Humbert is dead I pay you four thousand dollars. Divide it how you like; that is nothing to me.’

Improbable as a fairy tale though all this sounded, I could not resist the evidence of my own senses, which showed me the Abyssinian envoy there in the flesh. I knew, of course, that assassination has always been one of the recognised political methods of Asiatic and African States, but this alliance between a half-civilised despot and the extreme revolutionaries of Europe struck me as altogether without precedent in the history of the world. Certainly my own experience, fertile as it naturally had been in surprising incidents, had never brought to light a more singular intrigue than this.

My position now became an extremely difficult one. I had practically agreed to accept the commission to assassinate the King of Italy, but it was not that which troubled me. I foresaw that as soon as Menelik’s agent realised that he had been played with by me he would endeavour to find some other and more trustworthy tool. To denounce him to the police of New York would have been perfectly idle; in the first place he could buy the police, and in the second place no American court would punish a ‘political’ conspiracy, unless, indeed, it were against the United States.

I contented myself for the moment with formally undertaking the required murder. The Abyssinian arranged to bring the first instalment of the blood money to the watchmaker’s house on the following Saturday night, and we all three parted apparently on the best of terms.

The next day I sent off a long telegraphic despatch summarising the whole situation. The proposal I made was that the Italian Government should cable me authority and funds to enable me to have the Abyssinian envoy privately kidnapped, and returned to his own country, _viâ_ Massowah.

They had the incredible folly to wire instead to their Minister in Washington, instructing him to demand the arrest and expulsion of Menelik’s agent.

The net result of this ill-considered action was to flood the Italian quarter of Jersey City for several days with sham detectives, to cause a thousand or two dollars to pass into the pockets of the local Tammany, and to compel me to hasten my departure for Europe on my supposed mission, in order to rebut the suspicions of the Anarchists--and, in fact, to escape their vengeance.

The night before my departure there was a little supper at the club, at which the four were present. No open reference was made to the object of my journey. But after supper the half-witted Bresci, who had been one of the party, asked leave to walk home with me.

‘I wish I were going with you,’ he said suddenly.

‘I wish I could put you in an asylum, where you would be taken care of,’ was my thought in answer. I said aloud that I had reasons for going alone.

‘I know those reasons,’ the enthusiast declared. ‘Let me come with you. I am not afraid.’

For a moment I hesitated. A king’s life was in the balance, though I did not know it.

I made the clever man’s common mistake--I underrated the strength of the fool.

‘Take my advice,’ I said to Bresci, ‘leave this work to men like me. You are not suited for it: you would betray yourself directly.’

His face became overcast, and he relapsed into a sullen silence which lasted till I parted from him at my own door.

An hour before stepping on board the steamer that was to convey me to Havre I sent off a final wire: ‘_Am leaving to-day for Europe, pledged to kill King Humbert._’

This bitter shaft of contempt roused even the Italian police into activity. On landing at the French port I was met by a detective sent from Rome.

I took him with me to a hotel, where we discussed the situation in a private room.

‘It seems to me that we are all right for the present,’ he urged. ‘As long as they think you are going to carry out the work they are not likely to send any one else.’

‘Do not be too sure,’ I answered. ‘There is a lame watchmaker over there who does not quite trust me.’

‘What do you propose to do?’ asked the detective.

‘To shoot King Humbert,’ I replied.

The man gasped at me in sheer amazement.

‘I am going to put you to a practical test,’ I explained. ‘I am going to try and discharge a blank cartridge at the King. If you can prevent my doing so, I shall hope that his life is safe.’

‘But what do you expect us to do? We cannot arrest you.’

‘No; that is my point. You know that I am going to kill your King, and yet the law does not permit you to interfere till you see me put my finger to the trigger of my revolver.’

‘We can stop you at the frontier.’

‘Try,’ I said drily.

He tried. A week later I was in Rome.

In reality I did not intend to go quite so far as I had threatened. To do so would have been offensive to his Majesty. What I desired was to put the police thoroughly on the alert. I hoped to stimulate them into taking precautions which would be effective against a real assassin.

For I knew better than to think that Menelik’s envoy would go away satisfied with having despatched me on the errand of death. I did not believe the swarthy figure with the formidable white teeth would leave New York till he had received some certain assurance of the success of his murderous plans.

Before leaving the United States I had arranged with my old employers, Pinkerton’s, to have a watch kept on all outward-bound vessels, so that I might receive the earliest information of any move on the part of the Abyssinian. I had supplied them with a full description of the man.

Meanwhile the Italian police did their best, hampered as they were by the King’s chivalrous disregard of danger, and his dislike of surveillance. It is not an easy thing to guard a monarch against his will.

As soon as I had satisfied myself that my disguise as an Italian workman was impenetrable, I went northward after the doomed King. As my train rolled into the station at Turin, I caught a glimpse on the platform of a white face with long draggled hair and a haunted expression in the eyes--a face that I had last seen in a Jersey City slum at midnight, more than a month ago.

Long before the train stopped I had leapt out of my compartment in hot pursuit; but Bresci had disappeared.

I went instantly to the chief police-officer in Turin and gave information. Detectives were despatched in all directions to search the city; but it was too late.

The following morning a telegram was put into my hands before I got out of bed. It was from Pinkerton’s, and contained these words: ‘_Man answering description has just booked passage to Liverpool._’

This despatch convinced me that the situation was desperate. Coupling the news with the sight of the evening before, I could not doubt that the Abyssinian agent expected to hear within the next few hours that his dreadful end was achieved.

I dressed in feverish haste and rushed round to the police-office, only to learn that no arrest had been made, and Bresci was still at large.

‘Unless that man is apprehended within the next twenty-four hours, King Humbert will have ceased to live,’ I told the astonished chief of police.

In this extremity I decided to proceed to Monza, see the King myself, and implore him not to stir abroad until Bresci’s capture was notified. That afternoon, as I entered the small town of Monza, I was arrested on suspicion!

It was in vain that I protested, warned, and threatened. My demand to be carried before King Humbert was regarded as a proof of guilt. My disclosure of my identity was suspected as a ruse. I was confined in a cell while telegrams were being exchanged with my friend the Italian detective, and with my secretary in Paris.

Suddenly, as I tramped impatiently up and down within my narrow bounds, I was aware of a terrible commotion outside. Men ran past the door of my prison, curses and cries were heard, and there was a sound of bayonets being fixed. Maddened by the nervous tension, I battered with my manacled hands against the cell door.

It was flung open from without, and an armed warder faced me.

‘You are free,’ he said briefly. ‘The right man has been arrested--too late.’

I sank down on the plank seat and burst into tears.

VI

THE PERIL OF NORWAY

The readers of my previous revelations will have noticed that I have constantly been engaged in thwarting the schemes of the cunning rulers of Russia. This has been to me a labour of love. My father, as I have said, was a native of Poland, and I have avenged his wrongs on the Government which drove him forth to exile.

I have already related how I exposed and defeated the insidious design concealed under the Peace Rescript of Nicholas II. Hardly had this audacious intrigue miscarried when Europe was startled to hear that the Ministers of the Imperial peacemaker had overthrown the ancient liberties of Finland, in order to swell the Finnish contingent to the armies of the Tsar.

This time I admit that I was deceived, like everybody else. The brutal frankness of the proceeding disarmed suspicion. When Russia openly declares herself a tyrant, it is difficult to believe she is dissembling.

But there was one man in Europe who saw that there was more in the proceedings against Finland than met the eye. This was a monarch whose genius and nobility of character would have placed him at the head of living rulers had he been born to the command of a great Power instead of a small and distracted State. I need scarcely say that I refer to his Majesty, King Oscar of Sweden and Norway.

It was with peculiar satisfaction that I received a confidential summons from this King, whose fine qualities I had long admired, and by whom I felt it a distinction to be trusted. I was far from guessing the real nature of the business on which I was to be employed.

As the message did not come to me through the Scandinavian Minister in Paris, but was a private autograph communication from King Oscar himself, I was disposed to think his Majesty wanted me to adjust some family affair. It is well known that the Bernadottes are not more free from such anxieties than other royal houses.

On my arrival at the beautiful capital of Sweden, I put up at the Hotel Rydberg, entering myself as the Baron de Neuville, on tour. The same evening I was called upon by one of the King’s intimate friends, the Count Söderhielm, who took me across to the Palace, and introduced me into King Oscar’s private cabinet.

I noticed as we crossed the Place Gustavus Adolphus that the flag was not hoisted on the Palace. His Majesty was supposed to be at Drottningholm, from which place he had come secretly in a small launch for the purpose of our interview.

As soon as Count Söderhielm had presented me to his Majesty, he retired to the antechamber, leaving us together.

‘Perhaps you are wondering what I have sent for you to do?’ King Oscar began.

‘At least, I do not doubt that any service on which your Majesty employs me will be an honourable one,’ I answered respectfully.

The King smiled.

‘I have not sent for you to pay me compliments,’ he said rebukingly. ‘Let me first ask if it is true that you are no friend to the Russian Government?’

I looked at the King in some surprise.

‘It is better for me to tell you, sire, that I do not allow my private feelings to enter into my work. The Russian Government has employed me before now, and may do so again; in which case I should serve it as loyally as I hope to do your Majesty.’

The King did not seem ill-pleased by this frankness.

‘I respect you for that answer,’ he said graciously. ‘I ought not to have asked you for your personal confidence.’

‘I am a Pole by my father’s side, sire,’ I threw in.

King Oscar thanked me for this hint by a nod.

‘Let us come to business. You have taken note, I expect, of this determination to Russianise Finland?’

I bowed, restraining my curiosity at this unexpected opening.

‘You know that Finland is an ancient province of the Swedish Crown, and that when it was united to Russia, after the fall of Napoleon, my ancestor, the then Crown Prince Bernadotte, was authorised to take Norway as a compensation?’

‘I do, sire.’

‘Perhaps you know also that the exchange has been a disastrous one for Sweden. The Finns were contented and happy under our rule, while the Norwegians have done nothing but quarrel with the Swedes for a century.’

‘I have heard something of this,’ I responded.

‘Now as long as Finland held the position of a semi-independent State, over which the Tsar ruled as Grand Duke of Finland, it was possible for us to regard her as a buffer between us and Russia. We had every reason to hope that if the Russians wished to attack us, they would have to subdue Finland first.’

‘I was hardly aware of that, sire.’

‘It is the fact. The Finnish civilisation is really Swedish, our language is spoken there, and the Swedish element in the population looks on Sweden as its real home. Very good. That being so, the Russians have decided to conquer Finland in time of peace, under the cloak of administrative measures.’

‘Your Majesty means that this attack on Finland is really an attack on Sweden and Norway?’

‘It is the first step towards an attack on Sweden,’ King Oscar answered, with significance. ‘The question of Norway is the matter about which I have sent for you.’

I gazed at the King in astonishment.

‘I am the King of Norway as well as of Sweden,’ his Majesty pursued, ‘and you must not think I favour one country more than the other. But I might as well be King at the same time of France and Germany, for any real harmony there is between the two countries. The Norwegians are working for absolute separation; the Swedes will grant them everything except the right to make war on Sweden; and yet they cannot agree.’

‘You fear, sire, that the Norwegians will fight in order to secure their independence.’