The Intriguers

“Have you brought your violin with you, Nello?”

“I never travel without it, sir,” replied the young man.

“Ah, then, when we have had our smoke, perhaps you will humour an old man’s whim. Will you play for me that lovely little romance which was always your encore? There is a piano in yonder corner. Perhaps your wife, who is a musician, will accompany you. If not, I will do my best.”

Later on Nello played, his charming wife accompanying him. The Baron listened, enraptured.

“Ah, my dear Nello, that is exquisite music, exquisitely rendered,” he said when Corsini had finished. “That fellow who leads my orchestra is good – good enough for dinner anyway – but he has not your perfect touch. Ah, you remember me telling you once what I would give if you could teach me to play like you. Well, that offer is still open.”

Corsini smiled. “What would I not give to be the Baron Salmoros?”

The Baron raised himself from his artistic dreams. “Ah, my young friend, everybody wants something the other has got, and so it will be to the end of time.”

He looked long and earnestly at the young couple before he spoke again.

“Ah, how very strange is the world! Why should we grope our way in dark, tortuous, and devious paths to destruction when sincerity, truth, courage, and honesty of purpose will do it with less trouble and more certainty. I sent you to St. Petersburg because I knew the peril in which the Emperor, our good and faithful friend, existed – a peril which, if the plot succeeded, would be a grave disaster to our own diplomacy of Great Britain, and to all other countries, save Germany. The plot was formed here, in London, by that traitor, Prince Boris Zouroff, who possessed his Majesty’s confidence. But all has ended, my dear Count Corsini, as I had planned.”

Then rising, the great financier, who was also a statesman, added to Nada: “And I wish to heartily congratulate your Highness upon your husband – a man in whom your Emperor, the Queen of this country, and myself have the most perfect confidence.”

THE END