The Lady in the Car

“I know. I quite understand your Excellency,” exclaimed his Lordship, lowering his voice into a confidential whisper. “Let us speak quite frankly. In a gigantic matter of this sort – a matter of millions – certain palm-oil has to be applied – eh?”

The old man smiled, placed his hands together and nodded.

“Then let us go further,” Lord Nassington went on. “I submit in all deference – and, of course, this conversation is strictly in private between us, that should you think favourably of the scheme – my friends should secretly place a certain sum, say one hundred thousand pounds sterling at your Excellency’s command, to apply in whatever way you may think best to secure the success of the proposition. Are you willing?”

The old man rose from his chair, and standing before the younger man stretched forth his hand.

“Perfectly,” he said as the other grasped it. “We agree.”

“And if I frame the form of the concession you will agree to it and, in return for an undertaking of the payment of one hundred thousand pounds into – where shall we say – into the head office of the Credit Lyonnais in Paris in the name of your nominee, you will hand me the legal concession confirmed by the Italian Government?”

“I agree to hand you the necessary documents within a fortnight,” responded his Excellency. “The adoption of motor-traction in the remote districts for bringing wine and produce to the nearest railways will be of the greatest boon to our country.”

“Of course, my friends will leave the whole of the details, as far as finance on your side is concerned, to you,” his Lordship said. “You can administer the official backsheesh so much better than any one else.”

“Within a fortnight you shall be able, my lord, to hand your friends the actual concession for motor-transport throughout the kingdom of Italy.”

For another half-hour they discussed certain details, Lord Nassington talking big about his wealthy friends in London. Then, with his daughter and his niece, his Excellency accepted his guest’s invitation for a run out to Tivoli to take tea.

The “sixty” ran splendidly, and the Minister of the Interior was delighted. Before the girls, however, no business was discussed. Velia’s father, who, by the way had once been a clever advocate in Milan, knew better than to mention affairs of State before women.

During the run, however, he found himself counting upon the possibilities of Velia’s marriage with the amiable young English aristocrat who, upon his own initiative, had offered to place one hundred thousand sterling unreservedly in his hands. At most the present Cabinet could last another year, and then – well, oblivion if before then he did not line his nest snugly enough. The thought of the poor widows and orphans and starving populace down in Calabria sometimes caused him a twinge of conscience. But he only laughed and placed it aside. He had even been unscrupulous, and this young English peer was his friend, he would use to best advantage.

Though Lord Nassington was an eligible husband for his daughter, yet, after all, he was not a business man, but a wealthy “mug.” As such he intended to treat him.

At the little café, near the falls, where they took tea the conversation ran on motors and motoring, but his Excellency could not disguise from himself that the young peer was entirely fascinated by his good-looking daughter.

They lingered there until the mists began to rise and the red afterglow was fast disappearing; then they ran past the sulphur springs and on the broad highway back to the Eternal City at such a pace that his Excellency’s breath was taken away. But Lord Nassington drove, and notwithstanding the accident of two days previously, the Minister felt himself perfectly safe in his hands.

Three weeks went by. His Lordship took a flying visit to London, and quickly returned. Both he and the highly respectable clergyman of the English church, the Reverend Thomas Clayton, became daily visitors at the Peruzzi Palace. In the Corso the pretty Signorina Boncini and her cousin were often seen in his Lordship’s car, and already the gossip-loving world of Rome began to whisper that an engagement was about to take place.

The valet, Charles, also made a quick journey to London and back, and many telegrams were exchanged with a registered cable address in London.

One afternoon, in the private cabinet of that colossal building, the Ministry of the Interior, his Excellency handed his English friend a formidable document bearing many signatures with the official seal of the Government embossed, a document which gave Lord Nassington the exclusive right to establish motor-transport for both merchandise and passengers upon every highway in the kingdom. In exchange, his Excellency received an undertaking signed by a responsible firm in the City of London to place to the account of Madame Boncini at the Credit Lyonnais in Paris the respectable sum of one hundred thousand pounds within seven days.

“I shall return at once to London,” his Lordship said replacing the formidable document in its envelope, “and in exchange for this, the financial group will at once pay in the sum to Madame’s account in Paris, while the actual sum for the concession will be paid here, in Rome, to the Department of Finance, on the date stipulated.”

“Benissimo,” replied the grey-bearded statesman, holding one of his long Toscano cigars in the candle which he had lit for that purpose. “It is all settled. You will dine with us at home to-night.”

His Lordship accepted, and after further discussion regarding several minor details of the concession he rose and left.

That night he dined at the Peruzzi Palace, seated next his Excellency’s charming daughter, and next morning left the Excelsior in his big red car, to run as far as Bologna and thence return to London by rail.

With her father’s consent Velia her cousin and Signora Ciullini, her aunt, accompanied him and they set out across the Maremma for marble-built Pisa, where the girls were to return home by rail.

The more direct road was by Orvieto, but it is not so good as that wide, open road across the fever-marshes of the Maremma, therefore his Lordship resolved on taking the latter.

The day was glorious, and travelling for all they were worth with only two stops to refill with petrol, they ran into Pisa late that same night. The sleeping-car express from Paris to Rome was due in half an hour, therefore after a scrambling meal at the Victoria the aristocratic motorist saw the girls and their aunt safely into the train – kissing Velia in secret by the way – and waving them “addio,” watched the train glide out of the big echoing station again.

Then, with Garrett at his side, he turned the big car with its glaring head-lights out of the big gates through the town along the Lung’ Arno and into the high road for Florence.

In the early morning he passed through the dimly-lit deserted streets of the City of the Medici, and away beyond, through Prato, to the foot-hills of the Appenines where he began to ascend that wonderfully engineered military road which runs, with many dangerous turns for motorists, high up across the mountain range, and ends in the long colonnaded street of old Bologna.

It was noon ere he drew into the Piazza before the station, and giving Garrett instructions to continue on to Milan and north to Berlin where the car was to be garaged, he took the afternoon express for the frontier at Chiasso, travelling thence via Bâle to Ostend and London.

On entering his snug chambers at five o’clock one afternoon, he found Charles and the Parson smoking and awaiting him. That evening the trio held a long and earnest consultation. The official document was carefully examined, and the names of many city firms mentioned. The Parson seemed to possess a remarkable intimate knowledge of city life.

“Old Boncini is a clever old thief,” remarked the reverend gentleman. “He’s feathering his nest finely – all the money in his wife’s name.”

“My dear fellow, half the Cabinet Ministers of Europe only use their political influence in order to gain fortune. Except the British Government there isn’t a single one which isn’t corrupt.”

“Well, Albert, my dear boy, you certainly seem to have got hold of a good thing,” the Parson remarked. “His Corrupt Excellency seems to place every faith in you. Your four-flush was admirable all the time.”

“It took a bit of working, I can tell you. He’s as slick as a rat.”

“But he doesn’t suspect anything wrong?”

“Hasn’t the slightest idea of it, my dear Tommy. He fancies I’m going to marry his daughter. The fat old mother is already imagining herself mother-in-law of a British peer.”

“Yes. All Rome knows that you’ve fallen in love with the pretty Velia, and that you’ve told her the tale. What a fellow you are with the ladies.”

“Why?” he laughed taking a cigarette. “They are all very charming and delightful. But in my career I generally manage to make them useful. It’s really remarkable what a woman will do in the interests of the man whom she fancies is in love with her. Fortunately, perhaps, for me, I’ve only been in love once.”

“And it resulted in a tragedy,” remarked the Parson quietly, knowing that he referred to the Princess.

His Lordship sighed, flinging himself down in his armchair, worn out by long travel.

“My dear boy,” he said with a weary sigh, “if I ever got married I’d soon go mothy – everybody does. Married people, whatever their position in life, settle down into the monotonous groove that is the death of all romance. Before a man marries a girl they have little dinners together at restaurants, and little suppers, and all seems so bright and gay under the red candle-shades. We see it on every hand. But why should it all be dropped for heavy meals and dulness, just because two people who like one another have the marriage service read over them?”

The Parson laughed. His friend was always amusing when he discussed the question of matrimony.

During the next four days his Lordship, in the character of Mr Tremlett – as he was known in certain circles in the City – was busy with financiers to whom he offered the concession. His story was that it had been granted by the Italian Government to his cousin, Lord Nassington, and that the latter had given it into his hands to negotiate.

In the various quarters where he offered it the concession caused a flutter of excitement. The shrewdest men in the City saw that it was a good thing, and one after the other craved a day to think it over. It really was one of the best things that had been offered for a long time. The terms required by the Italian Government were not at all heavy, and huge profits were certain to be made out of such a monopoly.

The great tracts of fertile land in central and southern Italy would, by means of motor-transport, be opened up to trade, while Tremlett’s picturesque story of how the concession had been snatched away from a strong group of German financiers was, to more than one capitalist, most fascinating.

Indeed he saw half a dozen of the most influential men in the City, and before a week was out he had got together a syndicate which could command a couple of millions sterling.

They were all of them shrewd men, however, and he saw that it behoved him to be on the alert. There is such a thing in the City as to be “frozen out” of a good thing, even when one holds it in one’s hand.

By dint of close watching and clever observation, he discovered something, and this caused him to ponder deeply. The syndicate expressed themselves ready to treat, but for the present he was rather unwilling.

Some hitches occurred on technicalities, and there were a number of meetings to consider this point and that. By all this Mr Tremlett saw that he was losing time, and at the same moment he was not keeping faith with the old statesman concerning the amount to be paid into Madame’s account in Paris. At last one morning, after the Parson had left for an unknown destination, he took a taxi-cab down to the City with a bold resolve.

The five prominent financiers were seated together in an office in Old Broad Street when Mr Tremlett, leaning back in his chair, said:

“Well, gentlemen, it seems that we are as far away as ever from coming to terms, and I think it useless to discuss the matter further. I must take the business elsewhere.”