The assassin had dashed out from the crowd that lined the driveway and sprung to the side of the royal carriage before any of the bystanders had realized what was happening. The white-haired aide-de-camp sitting at his Majesty’s side was the first to see, and springing to his feet, he struck the man fiercely in the face just as he raised his arm. Had it not been for the aide-de-camp’s quick action, the man would have plunged his stiletto into the King’s heart.
Mrs. Copley and Mrs. Melville shuddered, and Marcia leaned forward listening with wide eyes.
‘Right on the Pincio, mind you.’ Melville in his excitement thumped the table until the glasses rang. ‘Not a chance of the fellow’s getting off. Scarcely a chance of his accomplishing his purpose. He knew he would be taken. Shouted, “Viva libertà!” as the soldiers grabbed him—I swear it beats me what these fellows are after. “Viva libertà!” That’s what they cried when they put the House of Savoy on the throne, and now they’re trying to pull it off again with the same cry.’
‘I fear the seeds of revolution are sown pretty thick in Italy,’ said Copley.
‘Where aren’t there the seeds of revolution to-day?’ Melville groaned. ‘Central Africa is only waiting a government in order to overturn it.’
‘By the way,’ interpolated Copley, ‘the assassin is a friend of Sybert’s.’
‘A friend of Sybert’s!’ Marcia echoed the words before she considered their form.
Sybert caught the expression and smiled slightly.
‘Not a very dear friend, Miss Marcia. I first made his acquaintance, I believe, on the day that you discovered Marcellus.’
‘How did that happen?’ Mrs. Copley asked.
‘I heard him talking in a café.’
‘It’s a pity you didn’t hand him over,’ said Melville. ‘You would have saved the police considerable trouble. It seems they have been watching him for some time.’
‘I wasn’t handing people over just then,’ Sybert returned dryly. ‘However, I don’t see that the police need complain. It strikes me that he has handed himself over in about as effectual a way as he possibly could; he won’t go about any more sticking stilettos into kings. The Italians are an excitable lot when they once get aroused; they talk more than is wise—but when it comes to doing they usually back down. It seems, however, that this fellow had the courage of his convictions. After all, it was, in a way, rather fine of him, you know.’
‘A pretty poor way,’ Melville frowned.
‘Oh, certainly,’ Sybert acquiesced carelessly. ‘Umberto’s a gentleman. I don’t care to see him knifed.’
‘What I can’t understand,’ reiterated Melville, ‘is the fellow’s point of view. No matter how much he may object to kings, he must know that he can never rid the country of them through assassination; as soon as one king is out of the way, another stands in line to take his place. No possible good could come to the man through Humbert’s death, and he must have known that he had not one chance in a hundred of escaping himself—I confess his motive is beyond me. The only thing that explains it to my mind is that the fellow’s crazy, but the police seem to think he’s entirely sane.’
Sybert leaned back in his chair and studied the flowers in the centre of the table with a speculative frown.
‘No,’ he said slowly, ‘the man was not crazy. I understand his motive, though I don’t know that I can make it clear. It was probably in part mistaken patriotism—but not entirely that. I heard him state it very clearly, and it struck me at the time that it was doubtless, at bottom, the motive for most assassinations. His words, as I remember them, were something like this: “Who is the King? He is only a man. Why is he so different from me? Am I not a man, too? I am, and before I die the King shall know it.”’
Sybert raised his eyes and glanced about the table. Copley nodded and Melville frowned thoughtfully. The two elder ladies were listening with polite attention, and Marcia was leaning forward with her eyes on his face. Sybert immediately dropped his own eyes to the flowers again.
‘There you have the matter in a nutshell. Why did he wish to assassinate the King? As an expression of his own identity. Through a perfectly natural egotistical impulse for self-assertion. The man had been oppressed and trampled on all his life. He was conscious of powers that were undeveloped, of force that he could not use. He was raging blindly against the weight that was crushing him down. The weight was society, but its outward symbol was the King. The King had only one life to lose, and this despised, obscure Neapolitan peasant, the very lowest of the King’s subjects, had it in his power to take that life away. It was the man’s one chance of utterance—his one chance of becoming an individual, of leaving his mark on the age. And, in acting as he did, he acted not for himself alone, but for the people; for the inarticulate thousands who are struggling for some mode of expression, but are bound by cowardice and ignorance and inertia.’
Sybert paused and raised his eyes to Melville’s with a sort of challenge.
‘If that man had been able to obtain congenial work—work in which he could take an interest, could express his own identity; if he could have become a little prosperous, so that he need not fear for his family’s support; why, then—the King’s life would not have been in danger to-day. And as long as there is any man left in this kingdom of Italy,’ he added, ‘who, in spite of honest endeavour, cannot earn enough to support his family, just so long is the King’s life in danger.’
‘And there are thousands of such men,’ put in Copley.
Melville uttered a short laugh. ‘By heavens, it’s true!’ he said. ‘The position of American consul may not carry much glory, but I don’t know that I care to trade it with Umberto for his kingdom.’
‘Do you suppose the King was scared?’ inquired Marcia. ‘I wonder what it feels like to wake up every morning and think that maybe before night you’ll be assassinated.’
‘He didn’t appear to be scared,’ said her uncle. ‘He shrugged his shoulders when they caught the man, and remarked that this was one of the perquisites of his trade.’
‘Really?’ she asked. ‘Good for Umberto!’
‘Oh, he’s no coward,’ said Sybert. ‘He knows the price of crowns these days.’
‘It’s terrible!’ Mrs. Melville breathed. ‘I am thankful they caught the assassin at least. Society ought to sleep better to-night for having him removed.’
‘Ah,’ said Sybert, ‘Society can’t be protected that way. The point is that he leaves others behind to do his work.’
‘The man was from Naples, you say?’ Mrs. Copley asked suddenly.
Her husband read her thoughts and smiled reassuringly. ‘So far as I have heard, my dear, there was no crucifix tattooed upon his breast.’
Marcia raised her head quickly. ‘Uncle Howard,’ she asked, ‘is that the mark of a society or of just that special man?’
‘I can’t say, I’m sure, Marcia,’ he returned with a laugh. ‘I suspect that it’s an original piece of blasphemy on his part, though it may belong to a cult.’
‘When is his time up?’ she persisted. ‘To get out of prison, I mean.’
‘I don’t know; I really haven’t figured it up. There are enough things to worry about without troubling over him.’
In her excitement over the King’s attempted assassination she had almost forgotten the man of the grotto, but her uncle’s careless laugh brought back her terror. The man might at that very moment be watching them from the ilex grove. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder toward the open glass doors which led to the balcony. It was moonlight again. In contrast to the soft radiance of the marble-paved terrace, the ilex shadows were black with the sinister blackness of a pall. She looked down at her plate with a little shiver, and she sat through the rest of the meal in an agony of impatience to get up and move about.