“But didn’t they quarrel a short time ago?” Rolfe remarked.
“Oh, a mere trifle. It was nothing. The Austrian press made a great stir about it, as they always do. All news from Servia emanates from the factory across the river yonder, at Semlin. If the journalists dared to put foot on, Servian soil they’d soon find themselves under arrest, I can tell you. No, the broad lines of policy of both Petrovitch and Pashitch are identical. They intend to develop the country by the introduction of foreign capital. The king himself told me so at an audience I had a month ago. He then told me, in confidence, that he had invited the Doctor to return and rejoin the Ministry. That is why I firmly believe that the poor Doctor, one of the best and most straightforward statesmen in Europe, has fallen a victim to his enemies.”
“Then you will set to work to discover what is known among the Opposition?” urged the young man.
“I promise you I will. But, of course, in strictest confidence,” was the Minister’s reply. “Petrovitch is my friend, as well as yours. I know only too well of the bitter enmity towards him in some quarters, especially among the partisans of the late king and a certain section of the Opposition in the Skuptchina. Mention of his name there causes cheers from the Government benches, but howls from the enemies of law and order. There was, some three years ago, a dastardly plot against his life, as you know.”
“No, I don’t know it. I have never heard about it,” was Rolfe’s reply.
“Ah! he never speaks about it, of course,” Sir Charles said, reflectively. “While driving out at Topschieder with his little orphan niece, of whom he was very fond, a bomb was thrown at the carriage. The poor child was blown to atoms, the horses were maimed, the carriage smashed to matchwood, and the coachman so injure that he died within an hour. The Doctor alone escaped with nothing more serious than a cut across the cheek. But that terrible death of his dead sister’s child was a terrible blow to him, and he has not been since in Belgrade. Because of that, I expect, he has hesitated to obey the king’s command to return to office.”
“Awful! I never knew of that. Maud has never told me,” said Rolfe. “What blackguards to kill an innocent child! Was the man who threw the bomb caught?”
“Yes. And the conspiracy was revealed by me activity of the secret police. They made a report to the Minister of Justice, who showed it to me in confidence.”
“Then you actually know who threw the explosive?”
“I know also who was responsible for the dastardly conspiracy—who aided and abetted it, and who furnished the assassins with money and promised a big reward if they encompassed the Doctor’s death!” said the Minister, slowly and seriously.