At ten minutes past four on the afternoon of 28 April 1945, a plumber by the name of Moretti shot and killed a prematurely aged man and a youngish woman, who was not wearing any underwear, in front of the Villa Belmonte, near Lake Como. Next to Moretti, who was later tried for theft and other misdeeds, was one Colonel Valerio, whose submachine-gun had jammed while trying to shoot the defenceless couple.
Millions of words have been written about the last moments of Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci, but until now not a single writer — not even the definitive biographer of the Duce, Nicholas Farrell — has managed to discover correctly Benito’s last words to Clara just before he was cut down by the cowardly communist assassin. This is a Spectator exclusive, Mussolini’s very last words — alas, words that I am not at liberty to reveal how I came to discover.
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