Chapter Twenty Three.
The Plot.
On that same hot afternoon, while His Excellency was pacing the library in the high-up old villa in the Apennines, Dubard alighted from a cab in the Via Salaria, in Rome, and entered a fine modern mansion, the home of Angelo Borselli, Under-Secretary for War. He was conducted to a small sitting-room, where, in the dim light of the closed sun-shutters, the arch-schemer was taking his siesta in a long wicker lounge-chair, half dozing, and yet revolving within his brain every detail of his ingenious plan to oust the Minister from office and to replace him.
“Why, my dear Jules!” he cried in surprise as the young Frenchman entered. “I thought you had gone up to San Donato in order to be near your charmer when the blow fell.”
“No,” responded Dubard in a rather hard voice. “I am still here—in Rome.” Then after a brief pause he looked the sallow man straight in the face and added, “The question must not be asked in the Chamber. The blow must not be struck—do you understand?”
“What do you mean?” cried Borselli, starting to his feet. “What has happened? I see by your face that something has occurred.”
“It has,” was the other’s answer. “Montebruno must be stopped.”
“Why?”