I was careful not to discourage this suggestion as I had the one made to me in London. I listened to all Ferretti had to say with apparent acquiescence.
‘Humbert has placed himself at the head of our enemies,’ he urged. ‘This Venice conference is a declaration of war. If we wish to maintain our moral ascendency we must strike a blow which will intimidate other rulers from proceeding against us.’
As soon as I could get away I went into New York and sent a code telegram to my secretary in Paris for him to decipher and send on to the King of Italy. It was in these terms: ‘Anarchists in Jersey City, U.S.A., are looking for man to send against you. Have ports watched.’
Unfortunately the King paid no attention to this warning. He was a fatalist, it seems.
Ferretti returned to the charge before long. I kept him in play, neither consenting nor refusing, my object being, of course, to retain his confidence. I did not want another man to be despatched instead of me without my knowledge.
It was not long before others beside Ferretti began to try and influence me in the same direction. It is difficult to trace the first birth of suspicion in the mind, but a suspicion was born in mine that these men had some motive which they had not yet disclosed to me for urging me to this attempt.
I tested them at last by making a counter-proposal. It was in the club, late one night, and there were present, beside Ferretti, another Italian who called himself ‘The Bear,’ a bearded German named Peters, and a Swiss watchmaker, who was lame and used crutches. These four seemed to have a common understanding.
Peters had been acting as spokesman, and strongly denouncing the proceedings at Venice, which he described as an abandonment of the methods of civilisation—a curious complaint for an Anarchist to make.
Ferretti applied the moral.
‘Some one must be found to avenge us,’ he declared. ‘If Humbert is suffered to live, our principles are doomed.’