The Day of Temptation

“I met her in Venice last year,” her ladyship said. “All Venice was acquainted with her deliciously original countenance. Her notoriety was due to her pretty air of astonishment, the purity of her blue eyes, and the expression of chaste innocence which she can assume when it so pleases her – an expression which contrasts powerfully with her true nature, shameless creature that she is.”

“And are you absolutely positive that the woman I love as Gemma Fanetti is none other than the Contessa Funaro, the owner of the great historic Funaro palace in Florence, and the Villa Funaro at Ardenza?”

“I have already told you all I know.”

“But you have given me no proof.”

“I merely express satisfaction that you have been wise enough to relinquish all thought of marrying her.”

“I really can’t believe that this is the truth. How did you know she was in London?”

“I was told so by one who knows her. She has been staying at the Victoria,” her ladyship answered.

“I don’t believe what you say,” he cried wildly. “No, I won’t believe it. There is some mistake.”

“She has left the hotel,” Lady Marshfield said, fixing her cold eyes on him. “Follow her, and charge her with the deception.”

“It is useless. I am confident that Gemma is not this notorious Contessa.”

Her ladyship made a gesture of impatience, saying – “I have no object in deceiving you, Charles. I merely think it right that you should be made aware of the truth, hideous as it is.”

“But is it the truth?” he demanded fiercely. “There is absolutely no proof. I certainly never knew her address in Florence, but at Livorno she lived in a little flat on the Passeggio. If she were the Contessa, she would certainly have lived in her own beautiful villa at Ardenza, only a mile away.”

“She may have let it for the season,” his hostess quickly observed.

“The Countess Funaro is certainly wealthy enough, if reports be true, without seeking to obtain a paltry two or three thousand lire for her villa,” he said.

“She no doubt had some object in living quietly as she did, especially as she was hiding her identity from you.”

“I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it,” he declared, as the remembrance of her passionate declarations of love flooded his mind. If what her ladyship alleged were actually the truth, then all her ingenuousness had been artificial; all her words of devotion feigned and meaningless; all her kisses false; all mere hollow shams for the purpose of deceiving and ensnaring him for some ulterior object. “Until I have proof of Gemma’s perfidy and deceit, I will believe no word against her,” he declared decisively.

“You desire proof?” the old woman said, her wizened face growing more cruel as her eyes again met his. “Well, you shall have it at once;” and, rising, she crossed to a small escritoire, and took from it a large panel portrait, which she placed before him. “Read the words upon this,” she said, with an evil gleam in her vengeful gaze.

He took the picture with trembling hands, and read the following, written boldly across the base: —

“T’invio la mia fotografia, cosi ti sarà sempre presente la mia efige, che ti obbligherà a ricordarmi. Tua aff. – Gemma Luisa Funaro.”

The photograph was by Alvino, of Florence, from the same negative as the one at that moment upon the table in his chambers. The handwriting was undoubtedly that of a woman he loved dearer than life.

Charles Armytage stood pale and speechless. Indeed, it was a hideous truth.

Chapter Nineteen

A Secret Despatch

At noon next day Count Castellani, the Italian Ambassador to the Court of St. James, stood at the window of his private room gazing out upon cabs and carriages passing and repassing around Grosvenor Square.

In his hand was a secret and highly important despatch which had only ten minutes before arrived from Rome by special messenger. His brows were knit, and he was pondering deeply over it. He stroked his grey beard and sighed, murmuring to himself —

“Extraordinary! Most extraordinary! If I had suspected such a complication as this, I should have never accepted this Embassy. True, this is the highest office in our diplomatic service – an office which I have coveted ever since I was a young attaché at Brussels. And now that I have fame in my own country, and honour among these English, I am unable to enjoy it. Ah! the fruits of life are always bitter – always!”

Then he drew another heavy sigh, and remained silent, gazing moodily out, his dark eyes fixed blankly upon the handsome square. No sound reached that well-furnished room with its double windows and hangings of dark-red velvet, the chamber in which the greatest of English statesmen had often sat discussing the future of the European situation and the probabilities of war; the room in which on one memorable day a defensive alliance had been arranged between Italy and England, the culminating master-stroke of diplomacy which had obviated a great and disastrous European war. And it was the tall, handsome, grey-bearded man, at that moment standing at his window plunged in melancholy, who had thus successfully saved his own country, Italy, by concluding the treaty whereby the fine Italian Navy would, in the event of war, unite with the British fleet against all enemies – the alliance whereby England would be strengthened against all the machinations of the Powers, and bankrupt Italy would still preserve her dignity among nations. It had been a truly clever piece of diplomacy. By careful observation and cunning ingenuity, Count Castellani had obtained knowledge of the projected action of France, of Germany, and of Russia, while the British Foreign Office had remained in utter ignorance. Then one day he had invited Lord Felixtowe, His Majesty’s principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and in that room he had plainly told the story of the conspiracy in progress against England. The Foreign Minister was so surprised that at first he could not credit that the Powers implicated could have the audacity to contemplate the invasion of our island; but when His Excellency brought forward certain undeniable proofs, he was compelled to admit the truth of his assertion.

Then, without a moment’s hesitation, the subject of a defensive alliance was mooted. United with the magnificent vessels of the Italian Navy, the battleships of Britain could hold the seas against all comers. There was no time to be lost, for Russian diplomacy was shrewdly at work in Rome with the object of contracting an alliance between the Government of the Czar and that of King Humbert. Therefore, without consulting the Cabinet, Lord Felixtowe had accepted the Ambassador’s proposals, and within twenty-four hours a treaty was signed, which has ever since been Europe’s safeguard against war. It was a short document, its draft only covering half a sheet of foolscap; but it was a bond between two friendly nations, which, it is to be hoped, will never be severed.

Yet the life of an Ambassador is by no means enviable. Even when promoted to the first rank, he obtains but little thanks from his chief, and less from his own compatriots at home. In this instance, Count Castellani, through whose ingenuity and far-sightedness England, and perhaps the whole of Europe, had been saved from an encounter of so fierce, sanguinary, and frightful a nature as the world has never yet witnessed, obtained not a word of thanks from the Italian people. Indeed, beyond a private autograph note from his sovereign and a long and formal despatch from the Marquis Montelupo, his master-stroke had passed by unnoticed and unknown save to those who had for years been plotting the down fall of the British Empire. The result was that in this, as in nearly every case where clever diplomacy is needed, the result of the negotiations remained hidden from the public. In this case, as in so many others, the alliance was entirely secret, and only after some months was its existence allowed to leak out, and only then in order that the enemies of England should hesitate before embarking upon any desperate step.

Sometimes, in his fits of melancholy, Count Castellani, like all other men, could not help feeling discontented. He was but human. When he reflected upon the glory which the German and French Ambassadors were accorded in their own countries each time they carried through some paltry, unimportant little piece of diplomacy, his heart grew weary within him. It was in this mood, unhappy and discontented, that he stood at the window with the secret despatch in his white, nervous hand. What he had read there brought back to him a recollection of days bygone – a recollection that was painful and bitter now that he had risen to be chief of the service in which he had spent the greater part of his life.

Yet it held him stupefied.

Again he sighed. His daughter Carmenilla, a slim, dark-haired girl of twenty, entered softly and, seeing her father silent and pensive, moved noiselessly across the room. He was wifeless, and all his love was bestowed upon his daughter, who held her father in absolute reverence. Carmenilla was not beautiful, but she was her father’s companion, helpmate, and friend. She stood behind him, and heard him exclaim, in a low voice only just audible —

“If what I suspect is true, then the secret is out. I must obtain leave of absence and go to Rome. Perhaps even now my letters of recall are on their way! Nevertheless, it is too strange to believe. No; at present I must wait. I can’t – I won’t believe it!”

At that moment there was a tap at the door, and as Carmenilla slipped out noiselessly, the liveried Italian servant announced that Dr Malvano had called.

“Show him in here,” His Excellency answered, crossing instantly to his writing-table, unlocking one of the drawers, and placing the secret despatch therein.

When Malvano entered, rosy, buxom, and smiling, well dressed in frock-coat, and carrying his silk hat and stick with that air adopted by members of the medical profession, the Count shook him by the hand and greeted him cordially. Without invitation, His Excellency’s visitor tossed his hat and stick upon the sofa, sank into the nearest chair, and stretched out his legs, apparently quite at home.

The Ambassador, first raising the heavy velvet portière, and slipping the small brass bolt of the door into its socket, took a seat at his table, and fixing his eyes upon the man who had served him with wine the night before, said, with a sigh —

“Well, Filippo. A crisis appears imminent.”

“You have heard from Rome?” Malvano exclaimed quickly. “I met Varesi, the messenger, in the hall.”

“Yes,” His Excellency said. “I’ve received certain instructions from the Minister, but it is impossible to act upon them.”

“Why?”

“For the prestige of Italy, for our own reputations, for the personal safety of the one to whom we owe our knowledge, it is impossible to act,” the Count answered gravely. “My hands are tied absolutely.”

“And you will stand by and see murder committed without seeking to bring pressure to bear against those who seek our ruin? This is not like you, Castellani.”

“No, Filippo,” the other said, in a tone of confidence quite unusual to him, for he was a stern, rather harsh, diplomat, who never allowed any personal interest to interfere with his duties as Ambassador. “Not a word of reproach from you, of all men. You alone know that I have secretly done my best in this affair; that I have more than once risked my appointment in order to successfully accomplish the work which you and I have in hand.”

“And I, too, have done my utmost,” Malvano observed. “Up to the present, however, our enemies have been far too wary to be caught napping.”

“Yes,” the Ambassador said. “In this matter I have relied absolutely upon your patriotism. Like myself, you have run great risks; but I fear that all is to no purpose.”

“Why?”

“Because we have not yet fathomed the mystery of the death of the girl Vittorina Rinaldo. If we could do that it would give us a clue to the whole affair.”

“Exactly,” Malvano answered. “In that matter we are no nearer the truth than we were on the first day we commenced our investigation. And why? Because of one thing – we fear ‘La Gemma.’”

“Where is she now?”

“Ah! Unfortunately she quarrelled with young Armytage, left the Hotel Victoria suddenly, and – ”

“And her whereabouts are unknown,” His Excellency gasped. “Dio mio!” he cried. “Then she may actually have gone back to Italy and betrayed everything!”

“I think that very probable,” Malvano said gravely. “For the past fortnight I’ve been daily at the Bonciani, and have kept my ears open. There is something secret in progress.”

“What’s its nature?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then you ought to know,” His Excellency cried petulantly. “You must find out. Remember, you are the secret agent of this Embassy, and it is your duty to keep me well informed.”

Malvano smiled. The expression upon his round ruddy face at that moment was the same as when, on the night Romanelli dined with him at Lyddington, he had urged his young friend to travel to Livorno, and make a declaration of love to the unfortunate Vittorina. It was a covert glance of cunning and double dealing. “I always report to you all I know,” he answered. “Yes, yes,” His Excellency said hastily, in a more conciliatory tone. “I withdraw those words, Filippo. Forgive me, because to-day I’m much worried over a matter of delicate diplomacy. In this affair our interests are entirely mutual. You and I love our country, our beloved Italia, and have taken an oath to our Sovereign to act always in his interests. It therefore now becomes our duty to elucidate this mystery. In you Italy has a fearless man of marvellous resource and activity – a man who has, in the past, obtained knowledge of secrets in a manner which has almost passed credence. Surely you will not desert us now and relinquish all hope of obtaining the key to this extraordinary enigma. What have you heard at Lady Marshfield’s?”

“I sent in my daily report this morning,” the Doctor answered rather coldly. “You have, I suppose, read it?”

“I have,” His Excellency said, leaning both his arms upon the table. “I cannot, however, believe that your surmise has any foundation. It’s really too extraordinary.”

“Why?”

“Such a thing seems not only improbable, but absolutely impossible,” the Count replied.

There was a pause, brief and painful. The men looked at one another deeply in earnest. At last Malvano spoke.

“I know well the conflicting interests in this matter. If we do our best for Italy, we do the worst for ourselves – eh?”

The Ambassador nodded. “My political enemies in Rome have, I fear, ingeniously plotted my downfall,” the Count replied in a low tone, as he pressed the other’s hand. “A single spark is only required to fire the mine. Then the Ministry will be overthrown, and the country must inevitably fall into the hand of the Socialists. Look what they have already done in Venice and in Milan. At the latter city they’ve closed La Scala, one of the finest theatres in the world; they’ve dissolved the dancing-school, and have done their worst in every direction. Venice has been revolutionised and now at every local election one reads, written with black paint upon the walls, ‘Down with the King and the robbers! Long live the Revolution!’ I’m a staunch supporter of law and order, a firm upholder of country and of King, therefore my days of office are numbered.”

“Not if we successfully solve this enigma.”

“Why? By doing so I shall defeat the plots of my enemies, and thus embitter them against me far more than before.”

“You fear La Gemma?”

His Excellency nodded.

“Why?”

“She knows too much.”

“So did Vittorina. She was silenced.”

“What do you mean, Malvano?” the Ambassador cried, pale and agitated. “That she should share the same fate?”

“No,” the other answered gravely. “As far as I can see no life need be taken if we act with cunning and discretion. Can you trust me?”

“I do so implicitly,” His Excellency answered, seeing that the secret agent was now entirely in earnest. “More than once you have obtained knowledge by means little short of miraculous.”

“Briefly, I’m an excellent spy – eh?” the Doctor laughed. “Well, I didn’t spend ten years at the Questura in Firenze, and practise as a doctor at the same time, without obtaining a little wholesome experience. If you’ll give this affair entirely into my hands, I’ll promise to do my level best, and to assist you out of your dilemma. Your position at this moment is, I know, one of the most extreme peril; but by playing a desperate game we may succeed in discovering what is necessary, thereby placing ourselves and our country in a position of absolute security.”

“You are an extremely good friend, Filippo,” the Count answered quickly. “In this country, surrounded as I am by traitors and spies, you are the only one in whom I can absolutely trust – except Carmenilla.”

“Your daughter must know nothing,” the Doctor exclaimed quickly. “This is no woman’s affair. If life must be sacrificed, then she might inadvertently expose us – women are such strange creatures, you know.”

“Whose life, then, do you fear may be taken?” His Excellency eagerly asked.

The Doctor raised his shoulders with a gesture expressive of profound ignorance.

“Not Gemma’s?”

“Why not Gemma’s?” Malvano inquired, in an intense voice. “In this affair we must speak plainly. Is she not your enemy?”

“Certainly.”

“Then, if a life must be taken, why not hers?”

There was a silence, broken only by the low rumble of carriages and cabs outside.

“No,” His Excellency answered. “Before I give you perfect freedom in this matter you shall promise me that she shall be spared. I have reasons – strong ones.”

“Certainly, if you desire it,” the secret agent replied. The thought at that moment flashed across his mind that, if for the preservation of their secret her lips must necessarily be closed, there were others beside himself who would compass her death. The life of a man or woman can always be taken for a sovereign in London, if one knows where to look for men ready to accomplish such work.

“Then you give me your promise?” the Count asked eagerly.

“On one condition only,” Malvano replied in a firm voice, while his eyes fixed themselves upon those of the Ambassador.

“What is your condition?” His Excellency inquired.

“There must be no secret between you and me, for in order to successfully accomplish this stroke of diplomacy we must act deliberately, with forethought, and yet boldly face the facts, risking everything – even our lives,” he answered. Then, gazing straight into the other’s face, he added, “I shall not act unless you allow me to read the despatch you received to-day from Rome.” The Ambassador’s brows instantly contracted, and he held his breath. For the first time, he became seized with a suspicion that this man, whose deep cunning as a secret agent was almost miraculous, was now playing him false.

“No,” he answered, “that is impossible. My oath to the King prevents me showing any one a despatch marked as confidential.”

“Then your oath to the King prevents you from acting in the interests of Italy and the Crown; it prevents me from forging a weapon wherewith to fight the enemies of our beloved country.”

“The despatch is entirely of a private character, and concerns myself alone,” His Excellency protested.

“In other words, you can’t trust me – eh?” the Doctor said, with a hard look of dissatisfaction. “I therefore refuse to act further in this affair, and shall leave you to do as you think fit. I must be in possession of all the known facts before I embark upon the perilous course before us; and as you decline absolutely, I am not prepared to take any steps in the dark. The risks are far too great.”

The Ambassador was silent for a few moments, his eyes riveted upon those of the secret agent. Then, in a deep, intense voice, he said —

“Malvano, I dare not show you that despatch.”

Chapter Twenty

“The Gobbo.”

Saturday night in South London is a particularly busy time for the wives of the working classes. The chief thoroughfares in that great district lying between Waterloo Bridge and Camberwell Green are rendered bright by the flare of the naphtha-lamps of hoarse-voiced costermongers, whose strident cries call attention to their rather unwholesome-looking wares, and the crowds of honest housewives with ponderous baskets on their arms are marketing in couples and threes, taking their weekly outing, which is never to be missed. In the Walworth Road on a Saturday evening one can perhaps obtain a better glimpse of London lower-class life than in any other thoroughfare. The great broad road extending from that junction of thoroughfares, the Elephant and Castle, straight away to the site of old Camberwell Gate, and thence to the once rural but now sadly deteriorated Camberwell Green, is ablaze with gas and petroleum, and agog with movement. The honest, hard-working costermongers, with their barrows drawn into the gutters, vie with the shops in prices and quality; hawkers of all sorts importune passers-by on the congested pavements; the hatless and oleaginous butchers implore the crowd to “Buy, buy, buy,” and the whole thoroughfare presents a scene of animation unequalled in the whole metropolis – a striking panorama of poverty, pinched faces, shabby clothes, and enforced economy. The district between the Elephant and Camberwell Green has fallen upon evil days. Those who knew the Walworth Road twenty years ago, and know it now, will have marked its decadence with regret; how the lower life of East Street, known locally as Eas’ Lane, has overflowed; how fine old houses, once tenanted by merchants and people of independent means, are now let out in tenements; how model “flats” have reared their ugly heads; how the jerry-builder has swallowed up Walworth Common, across which Dickens once loved to wander; how all has changed, and Walworth has become the Whitechapel of the south.

Life in Walworth is the lower life of modern Cockneydom. There are streets in the district which, highly respectable thoroughfares twenty years ago, now harbour some of the worst characters in London; streets which, although a stone’s throw from the noisy, squalid bustle of the Walworth Road, a policeman hardly cares to venture down without a companion; sunless streets where poverty and crime are hand in hand, where filth has bred disease, and where stunted, pale-faced children wallow in the gutter mire. The wreckage of London life now no longer drifts towards the east, as it used to do, but crosses the Thames, and, after struggling in Lambeth, is swallowed in the debasing vortex of wretched, wonderful Walworth.

Those who pass up the great broad thoroughfare from Camberwell citywards see little of Walworth life. Only when one turns into one or other of its hundred side-streets, which spread out like arms towards the Kennington or Kent Road, can one observe how the poor exist. Among these many streets, one which has perhaps not deteriorated to such an extent as its neighbours, is the Boyson Road. The long thoroughfare of smoke-begrimed, jerry-built houses of monotonous exactness in architecture, two stories, and deep areas, is indeed a very depressing place of residence; but there is not a shop in the whole of it, and it is therefore quiet and secluded from the eternal turmoil of Camberwell Gate.

Halfway down this street, in one of the drab, mournful-looking houses, lived a man and his wife who held themselves aloof from all their neighbours. The man was an Italian, whose vocation was that of waiter in a restaurant in Moorgate Street, and he had taken up his residence in Boyson Road only a few months before. His name was Lionello Nenci, the man who had earned such unenviable reputation among the hucksters’ shops in Hammersmith, and whom Gemma, on her arrival in London, had tried vainly to find.

An air of poverty pervaded the interior of the house. The hall floor was devoid of any covering save for a sack flung down in place of a mat; the sitting-room was furnished in the cheapest manner possible; and, by the hollow sound which rang through the place, it was apparent that few of the other ten or twelve rooms contained any furniture at all.

Before the fire in the rusted grate of the sitting-room, on this cold, damp Saturday night early in December, Nenci himself, a dark-faced, surly-looking man with scrubby black beard, aged about thirty-five, was seated smoking a cheap cigar, while near him was a younger man, ugly, hump-backed, pale-faced, also an Italian. They were speaking in Tuscan.