The man threw the dagger back on the desk and laughed.
"I knew you talked like that to the people--statesmen do
sometimes--that's all right--it's pretty, and it keeps the people
quiet--but we...."
David Rossi rose with a sovereign dignity, but he only said: "Mr. Minghelli, our interview is at an end."
"So you dismiss me?"
"I do," said David Rossi. "It is such men as you who put back the
progress of the world and make it possible for the upholders of
authority to describe our efforts as devilish machinations for the
destruction of all order, human and divine. Besides that, you speak as
one who has not only a perverted political sentiment, but a personal
quarrel against an enemy."
The man faced round sharply, came back with a quick step, and said:
"You say I speak as one who has a personal quarrel with the Prime
Minister. Perhaps I have! I heard your speech this morning about his
mistress, with her livery of scarlet and gold. You meant the woman who
is known as Donna Roma Volonna. What if I tell you she is not a Volonna
at all, but a girl the Minister picked up in the streets of London, and
has palmed off on Rome as the daughter of a noble house, because he is a
liar and a cheat?"
David Rossi gave a start, as if an invisible hand had smitten him.
"Her name is Roma, certainly," said the man; "that was the first thing
that helped me to seize the mysterious thread."
David Rossi's face grew pale, and he scarcely breathed.
"Oh, I'm not talking without proof," said the man. "I was at the Embassy
in London ten years ago when the Ambassador was consulted by the police
authorities about an Italian girl who had been found at night in
Leicester Square. Mother dead, father gone back to Italy--she had been
living with some people her father gave her to as a child, but had
turned out badly and run away."
David Rossi had fixed his eyes on the stranger with a kind of glassy
stare.
"I went with the Ambassador to Bow Street, and saw the girl in the
magistrate's office. She pleaded that she had been ill-treated, but we
didn't believe her story, and gave her back to her guardians. A month
later we heard that she had run away once more and disappeared
entirely."
David Rossi was breathing audibly, and shrinking like an old man into
his shoulders.
"I never saw that girl again until a week ago, and where do you think I
saw her?"