Read Ebook: The Day of Temptation by Le Queux William Grieffenhagen Maurice Illustrator

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Ebook has 391 lines and 20489 words, and 8 pages

t me are foul libels set about by Montelupo and yourself for political purposes."

"Enough!" he cried, incensed at her words. "We need not discuss that now. I demand to know why I find you prying here, in my room?"

She smiled. "I came to see Carmenilla," she answered.

"And she invited you to lunch?--you whom I have forbidden her to know!" he exclaimed, exasperated. "A woman of your stamp is no companion for my daughter."

"Yet you once told me that you loved me, and I might, if I had felt so inclined, have now been the Countess Castellani, and done the honours of this Embassy. Ah, my dear Conte," she went on, "you are a noted diplomatist, and no doubt as wary and cunning as most of your confreres. But you forget that every woman is by birth a diplomatist, and that in politics I have had a wide and, perhaps, unique experience."

"You possess the ingenuity and daring of the very devil himself," he blurted forth. "Show me that paper."

"No," she answered firmly. "It is in my possession--and I keep it."

"You've stolen it!" he cried, advancing towards her determinedly. "Give it to me this instant."

"I shall not."

From where he stood his eyes wandered to the table, and he noticed that one of the drawers stood open. Within her hand, he saw the envelope was a blue one, secured by seals. In an instant he dashed towards the drawer, rummaged its contents, and finding the document missing, cried--

"Your infernal impertinence is really astounding. You enter my house, commit a theft, and when charged with it refuse to give up the stolen property. If you don't return it to me at once, I'll call in the police, and have you arrested."

"Really?" she exclaimed with a sarcastic laugh which caused his cheeks to become flushed by anger. "I think after so many years of diplomacy, you ought to be aware that such a course is impossible. If you were a young attache just fresh from Rome, my dear Count, you might be pardoned for not knowing that here, in this Embassy, I am on Italian soil, and, being an Italian subject, the London police are unable to arrest me."

"But they could outside--in the Square."

"Certainly. But if I choose to remain here--what then?"

"Remain here! You speak like an imbecile. Come, give me back that envelope."

"Never!" she replied, still holding it firmly in her small hand, and regarding him in defiance.

Castellani knew well the contents of that envelope, and was aware that Gemma must have been employed by those implicated by the proofs it contained. For months he had held this in his possession as a weapon to use as a last resource, and the manner in which she had entered his room and filched it from the drawer made it plain to him that those to whom he was now opposed were prepared to go any length to gain their own ends. But he likewise knew Gemma well, and was aware that as a secret agent of the Ministry she was without equal--fearless, resourceful, and versed in every art of deception. He had met her often in society in Rome and Florence two years ago, been struck by her marvellous beauty as others had been, and had offered her marriage. In a word, he had made a fool of himself.

The revelations contained in that envelope she held were sufficient to cause the present Government to be hounded from its office and fat emoluments, and possibly force a criminal prosecution against certain ministers for misappropriating the public funds, therefore he was determined to regain it at all hazards and use it for his own advancement. He had, only a month ago, been promised by his party the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the next Government, and this single document would place him in high office in Rome.

"If you defy me," he said after a pause, his menacing gaze fixed upon that of the pretty, fragile woman, "I must be ungallant enough to wrench it from you."

"I scarcely think you'll do that," she answered. "If you did, we could never come to terms."

"Come to terms?" he echoed resentfully. "I don't understand. I've no intention of coming to any arrangement with you."

He was standing before her in the centre of the room, but she watched his every movement narrowly. She saw that he was desperate, and intended to regain possession of the envelope.

"Once again I ask you to give me that paper you have stolen," he said in a voice that quivered with rage.

"I have already replied, Count Castellani," she responded, "and I wish you good-afternoon." Then with her skirts rustling, she bowed and swept past him towards the door.

"No!" he cried, springing forward and arresting her progress in a moment of fury. "You shall not escape like that. Give me the paper, or--or by Heaven, I'll--"

"Well?" she cried, turning upon him with flashing eyes. "What will you do?"

He drew back abashed.

"I apologise, Contessa," he said quickly. "But give me back that paper. Remember that you've committed a barefaced, unpardonable theft."

"And you, as Ambassador of Italy, utter barefaced lies every day," she retorted.

"Diplomacy is the art of lying artistically," he answered. "It is impossible to achieve success in diplomacy without resorting to realistic perversions of the truth. Every diplomatist must be a born liar--but he need not be a thief."

"Some are," she retorted. "You are one."

His face went purple in anger.

"I--a thief?" he blurted forth. "Have you taken leave of your senses, woman?"

"Not entirely. I believe I have some remaining," she replied. "I again repeat that you, the Count Castellani, His Majesty's Ambassador, are a mean, despicable thief, whom the Tribunal at Rome would sentence to seven years' imprisonment if they became acquainted with the facts."

"Enough! Not another word, woman!" he cried in a towering passion. Then, grasping her arms, he, after a short desperate struggle, succeeded in wrenching from her the envelope for which she had risked so much. "Now you may go," he said, as she stood flushed, panting, and breathless before him, her hair a trifle disarranged, the lace upon one of her cuffs torn and hanging. "If you don't leave at once, I'll ring and have you turned out."

"I shall go when you give me back that paper," she answered, facing him.

"You'll never have it."

"Then, listen," she went on calmly, taking a few hasty steps towards where he was standing astride before the fire. "The worth of that document is to you considerable, I know, but there are others to whom its value is even greater. Just now I charged you with theft, and you feigned to have forgotten. Well, I will recall a fact or two to your memory. A year ago, at Como, there was an inquiry into certain scandals connected with the Bank of Naples." Then she paused. The Ambassador's face had instantly blanched. "Ah!" she went on, "I see that event has not quite slipped your memory. Well, as the result of that inquiry, in which certain statesmen were implicated, two well-known public men received sentences of ten years' imprisonment, and others ranging from two to five years. But, at that inquiry, it was shown that a certain cheque was missing, and it was further proved that this cheque had been drawn for half a million francs. To whom that sum passed remained a mystery."

"Well?" His Excellency gasped, still pale, glaring at her as if she were some object supernatural. All his self-possession had left him.

"The fact is a mystery no longer."

"Why?"

"Because the identical cheque has been recovered and bears your endorsement," she answered, in a slow, distinct voice.

"Who has recovered it?" he demanded quickly. "Who has it?"

She smiled triumphantly. This elegant man who but a moment ago had talked boldly, as became the Ambassador of Italy, was now cringing before her seeking information. His cool demeanour had altogether forsaken him.

"I have that cheque," she said, her clear, unwavering eyes fixed upon his.

In an instant Castellani perceived that he was in the power of this pretty woman he had denounced and condemned. He knew well, too, that she was not the gay, abandoned woman that La Funaro was popularly supposed to be.

"Reflect for a single moment," she continued ruthlessly. "What would be the result of the production of that missing draft about which so much has been written in the newspapers?"

The Ambassador bit his lip. Never in the whole course of his long and varied diplomatic career had he been so ingeniously checkmated by a woman. The estimate he had formed of her long ago was entirely correct. She possessed really remarkable talents.

"The result would certainly be rather annoying," he observed, making a sorry attempt to smile.

"It would throw a very fierce light upon the ways and means of the party of thieves and adventurers who are endeavouring to grab Italy and grow fat upon its Treasury," she exclaimed. "The situation at Rome has, I understand, changed considerably within the past week or so. The public mind is feeling the influence of unfavourable winds. Well, it is possible before long that this missing cheque will have to be produced."

"Which will mean my ruin!" he blurted forth. "You know that well. If that cheque ever gets into the hands of the present Government, I shall be recalled and tried in a criminal court as a common thief."

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