CHAPTER IV.

The publication of the discovery that the supposed suicides were, in reality, murders committed by the same individual, filled London with horror, which was intensified a hundred-fold by the knowledge that the murderer was still at large.

The Metropolitan police, even when put upon the right track, failed to discover any clue of the murderer, and at the end of a fortnight all they could say in the way of elucidation was, that an aged man with long white hair had been seen near the scene of each of the murders at the time of the occurrence and prior to it.

There was nothing especially suspicious in his actions or appearance, and the fact that he was in the neighborhood at the time might simply be a coincidence, or the various testimony might not even refer to the same individual, for white-haired elderly men are not at all uncommon in London.

That the police should attach any importance to so faint a clue was perhaps the best evidence of their admission how completely they were baffled; so at least the public considered and the newspapers jeered the officials for their inefficiency.

Meantime my friend continued his investigation with unabated ardor, and, night after night, in the quiet of my bachelor rooms, we discussed each point of evidence, however slight, and classified or dismissed it according to its value.

Pasquale surrendered everything to the discovery of the dreadful mystery, and he grew thin and anxious-looking as the days passed by without throwing any further light upon it.

These were days ill-suited to hilarity, and much of the gaiety of Pasquale’s sunny ways faded before their chilling influences; still if the efflorescence of his light-hearted disposition seemed shed for the time, the fact only served to reveal the true beauty of soul which was the foundation of all I loved so much.

Save when crossed by the sight of suffering uselessly inflicted upon the lower animals, I think he was the sweetest, gentlest creature God ever made; and the most lovable.

“And yet so inexorable in hunting down the assassin!” the reader will say--and I answer yes. Of the secret of that involved mechanism which formed Pasquale’s soul I had no key; I only know that to me my friend was like the fascinating page of some dearly-loved book--blurred and unintelligible here and maybe there, but still sweeter in its occasional illegibility than all the other volumes on earth combined.

At the end of the third week of search Pasquale’s valet called to explain that his master had suddenly been summoned abroad to a family council, but that his absence would probably not extend beyond a week.

If I could ever have found it in my heart to be vexed with Pasquale it would have been over his habit of obeying those calls so promptly as not even to allow himself time to bid me good-bye.

“Did your master leave no message, Jacques?” I inquired, puzzled to account for the absence of any further explanation.

“No, sir; he left in haste and ordered me to present his apologies to you for his omission to call and say good-bye.”

I looked at the speaker and endeavored to read his expression, but the deep-set eyes dropped the moment they encountered my gaze, and the clear-cut cruel lips and formidable jaw, together with the down-cast eyes made one of the most unpleasing masks it had ever been my evil fortune to gaze upon.

I thought of the masks of murderers in Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors, and began to regard my visitor with a curious interest.

“Will you have a glass of brandy, Jacques?” I inquired, piqued by the man’s impenetrability, and trusting to the liquor to thaw it.

“Thank you, sir.”

But the potent liquor served only to harden the deep lines which guarded the reticent lips, and after I had measured the implacable face and found no encouragement there, I said, “Jacques, that is all,” and, with a low bow the inscrutable valet, or detective, left.

After he had closed the door, I amused myself by sketching his head in profile upon the blotting pad. As the sketch lay before me it certainly did not represent, according to either phrenologists or physiognomists, a bad or wicked head. It was simply the side face of a self-contained, determined man, and one possessed of considerable possibility of lofty purpose.

I tossed the paper from me--disappointed in the sketch even more than I had been in the original.

On the fourth day after my friend had left, I was aroused at an early hour by the valet, who, after apologizing for the intrusion, handed me the morning paper, and pointed to the announcement of another suicide by a public functionary, and under circumstances precisely similar to the cases which had preceded it.

As in the other instances, the victim’s hand grasped a razor, to account for the deep wound in his throat, while his death was in reality due to the puncture of the brain by the concealed dagger point.

My instant impulse was to telegraph for my friend to enable him to take up the scent while it was fresh. I accordingly framed a message for the valet to send in his own name, and this I--still in bed--requested him to dispatch.

At four in the afternoon I received a note from the valet to the effect that he had heard from his master, and that the latter would be with me the following morning.

“Let me see the cablegram you received, Jacques.” “Sorry that I have destroyed it,” replied that irritating individual. I thought that in a gentle and careless way I would hint to my friend that however faithful a valet or detective Jacques might be, something less like a cast-iron sphinx would better meet the exigencies of ordinary life. I was undergoing a childish fit of annoyance.

The evening papers gave full details of the so-called suicide and also announced the fact that a white-bearded individual--such as the police had connected with the previous crimes--had been seen in the vicinity of the suicide, and had been traced.

Such was the condition of affairs when my friend, covered with the dust of travel, entered my room the following morning.

At his urgent and indeed impassioned request, I obtained leave of absence from the office that day, in order to aid him in following the clues left by the murderer while they were still fresh.

As I left my apartments with my friend, I caught sight of his valet standing at the entrance to the adjoining house. His usually stolid face seemed to be expressive of anxiety, and once or twice he moved as if about to speak. He had, however, all his life long cultivated a habit of silence, and in his present spasm of uncertainty it prevailed. I saw or appeared to see, a struggle going on in his mind, but I had no clue to his apprehensions, and the symptoms of his distress were too indefinite and too fleeting to justify action on my part; and, unwarned, unchecked by the hand which still, even at the eleventh hour, might have changed it, my friend Pasquale and I went forward to fulfil our destinies.

I would fain draw a curtain over the events of the following twenty-four hours. They have darkened my life, and they will shorten my days. Pasquale and I examined each detail of the murder, but without throwing further light upon it. The police, on their part, followed up step by step the retreat of the white-haired murderer, only, however, to lose him at King’s Cross. He had been too astute to hail a cab, and the numerous exits afforded by that teeming centre gave him all the facilities for escape which he needed.

When we parted for the night it was in disheartened silence. True, Pasquale looked bright and cheery as usual, but I knew by my own feelings that he must be as low in spirits as could well be. In vain I strove to bury myself in an agreeable book; I could not read and I could not rest.

At length, worn out by the day’s fierce though fruitless emotions, I threw myself, tired and worn out, on my bed, and after a while I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Presently I awoke--suddenly and keenly conscious of the near happening of some event of stupendous importance. The fire in the grate was still burning brightly, so that I had not slept long. Why had I awoke so soon and in such a startled and expectant state?

There was no apparent reason within my room--but, hark! what was that? Clearly and distinctly, as if there were no obstructing walls, I could hear the noise made by the tenant of the neighboring rooms as he prepared himself to retire for the night. The sound of each movement fell on my ear, in my then state of tension, with all the clearness of a bell. I could even hear his muttered conversation. The latter seemed to be of so strange and disjointed a character that, my curiosity overcoming me, I stooped and applied my ear to the keyhole of the oaken door which divided our rooms, believing that some demented person had gained wrongful access to the adjoining rooms.

My view was limited to a few seconds, at the end of which the other door which fronted the one in my own wall was abruptly closed. But in that limited time my eye had garnered a terrible harvest, for in the muttering inmate of the adjoining room I had identified--or imagined I had identified--the white-bearded murderer as described by all who had seen him; not indeed identified to me by the whiteness of his hair and his age only, but by the blood-stained hands which he removed from his gloves and by the weapon which he laid upon his table.

What to do I knew not, and, horrified beyond measure, I lay in my bed, petrified with apprehension, waiting for the dawn.

With the first glimmer of dawn I sent next door for my friend, and explained to him my midnight experiences.

“It is very strange,” he murmured. “Very strange. Who do you think lives opposite to you?” From the glance he gave me it was evident that my friend thought I had taken leave of my senses. “Only the old Frenchman you told me of,” I replied. “Old Frenchman?” he returned with an air of puzzled surprise and interrogation. “Did I say an old Frenchman lived over against you? You misunderstood me, I think; he occupies the rooms to the rear.” “Well, it was there that I heard the noise and saw the man,” I replied.

A look of pain and perplexity had come into my friend’s face, and for a few minutes he sat in silence, apparently lost in thought. Then he rose to his feet and turned towards the door, adding as he opened it, “As soon as you have breakfasted I would like you to accompany me to the police station. I think you ought to tell the officers what you saw.”

There was still the same look of puzzled uncertainty in my friend’s face, as well as an anxious glance, as if for my welfare, but there was also a look of unutterable resolution as he said, as if to himself, “There must be no hesitation; this thing has to be gone through.”

An hour later Pasquale and I arrived at the police station, and half an hour afterwards two police officers, two detectives, Pasquale and myself left for my friend’s house.

On the way thither Pasquale stepped aside to make a small purchase. “Go straight on; I will follow you in a minute. I have left my pass-key in another pocket, so you must knock for admittance.”

“Show these gentlemen up to the third floor.” Such was the landlady’s orders to the servant when we requested to be shown to Mr. Pasquale’s rooms, where we were to mature our plans.

When the servant reached the second floor she threw open the front sitting-room door and stood aside to allow us to enter.

“This is not the third floor, my good girl,” exclaimed the senior constable; “this is the second floor.”

“Well, sir! mistress calls it the third floor,” the servant replied.

At this moment Pasquale, who had joined us, remarked pleasantly, “The girl is right; her mistress is an American and counts the ground-floor as the first floor; these are the rooms which I occupy.”

“Yes, sir,” exclaimed the reassured servant, “these are Mr. Pasquale’s rooms.”

My brain was in a perfect whirl--these my friend’s rooms! I had always imagined that he lived on the floor above, misled by the American landlady’s method of reckoning the floors. I glanced at Pasquale, but he was unconscious of my look.

Turning to the servant he said, “Tell your mistress that the police wish to inspect M. Goddecourt’s rooms, and bring us the key of his door.”

“M. Leon Goddecourt is the elderly French gentleman I spoke to you about as occupying the rooms at the rear.” This was Pasquale’s explanation to me.

When the servant returned with the key Pasquale led the way into the passage communicating with the rooms at the back.

The occupant of the rooms was absent, and there was no hindrance to an exhaustive examination. There was no door connecting with the rooms of the house in which I lived. Nothing was discovered. The police were turning to go, impressed, I believe, with the idea that I had been hoaxing them, or else that the excitement of the murder had driven me crazy for the time, when Pasquale, addressing me, inquired whether I was certain that these were the rooms into which I was looking when I saw the supposed murderer. “You can see for yourself, Wyndham,” he remarked, “that your rooms and mine are not of the same length, and it was very easy for you to make a mistake by concluding that the dimensions were the same.”

“I cannot tell with any certainty,” I added falteringly, “for without thinking very closely about it, I had assumed that the rooms on both sides the partition were the same depth, but the door on my side is at the extremity of my bedroom, and when you said that the Frenchman lived at the rear, I concluded from the appearance of the man I saw that I was looking into his rooms.”

“Well the matter can be settled very promptly,” remarked Pasquale. “If you will go with one of these gentlemen, Wyndham, and show him the doorway through which you saw the old man, we can easily connect with you here.”

This seemed the most natural thing to do, and we prepared to carry out Pasquale’s suggestion. As I was leaving the room the police sergeant inquired whether Pasquale had the key of the door connecting my rooms with his through the wall dividing the two houses, and before I passed out of hearing I heard Pasquale explain that he had never had a key of that door, and did not believe that there was one in existence.

When the policeman and I entered my apartments the former remarked that he thought that the door which I pointed out to him would, if opened, be found to lead into Mr. Pasquale’s rooms--“at least I judge so from the relative length of the rooms,” he added.

Our loud knockings at the door through which I had seen the midnight spectacle produced no result for a minute; evidently our friends were still in the rear rooms. Then we could hear voices indistinctly, and presently the sound of blows opposite to us showed that our friends had at last “located” us.

After a short interval of heavy blows on the opposite door the latter was burst open--that much we could hear by the volume of sound which reached us--there was a shout of excitement, and presently the door which had been forced was shut, and we could see and hear no more.

Something very amazing had happened; what was it?

* * * * *

How can I relate the story of the events which followed? Even now, at this lapse of time, the recital of them chills my inmost soul. When we returned to the other house, we found Pasquale, my friend and more than brother, in the custody of the police. The space between the double doors dividing his room and mine had revealed all the paraphernalia of the supposed murderer, and that it belonged to Pasquale was apparently beyond doubt.

The wig and beard; the clothes, the boots, the blood-stained gloves; and even the hare’s-foot with which the face had been painted to the semblance of age, all belonged to him and all were there; and worse and still more damning evidence was found in an oblong ivory box of antique pattern. Within this lay a stiletto handle, the ivory of which was yellow with extreme age. The weapon had no blade, but imbedded in the faded velvet of the lid were seven dagger points identical in every respect with those found in the heads of the dead men.

As we came forward the police sergeant removed a handkerchief from the pocket of the coat found in the recess.

It, too, was slightly stained with blood, and on the corner it bore the embroidered monogram of my ill-fated friend.

Horror-stricken, I stared at the face of Pasquale, who was now securely held by the police. Still the same puzzled expression in it; that and nothing more. He was evidently unable to understand the situation. After a time he heaved a deep sigh, and, stretching out his manacled hands, he took up the ivory dagger, as if casually and disinterestedly.

“Yes, that must have been what he used,” he murmured; “I have read of such stilettos.”

At that moment I caught the gaze of the valet, Jacques, who had silently stolen into the room. I had, up to this time, well-nigh hated his homely, reticent face for the way it resisted me, but now and henceforward I loved it for the expression it bore on that fateful morning.

It was the appeal of a hero prepared to sacrifice his life on the mere fraction of a chance, and what his glance entreated was that I should create a diversion so that he should carry out his intentions. The hard lines on his inflexible face seemed to shiver and break in his terrible anxiety, and his fears, although they added to my own dread, inspired me.

“Stay!” I said to the officer, “I have a confession to make. This gentleman,” pointing to Pasquale, “has done nothing; a child could see by his face that he is innocent. I am the guilty person; my room also opens on to that cupboard; I placed all the material of my make-up there, and raised the alarm to disguise my own guilt,” and I held out my wrists as if to feel the clasp of the handcuffs.

At the conclusion of my remarks Jacques sprang forward like a tiger, hurled one detective to the floor, thrust the policemen swiftly on one side, and, seizing his master by the arm, was hurrying him away when a violent blow from the powerful and cool-headed sergeant disabled him.

“Arrest him,” the sergeant said briefly, to his subordinates, indicating poor Jacques; then turning to myself, he pointed with his hand to the door opening into my room, of which the bolts were still shot in their sockets.

“I admire your efforts, sir, but you could not have entered that space between the two doors from your room, for it was bolted against you!”

Meantime, Pasquale appeared unconscious of the turmoil. He seemed still to be examining the stilettos.

Only once did he look up--when he heard me endeavoring to incriminate myself--then a soft beautiful smile crept over his face, but he nevertheless shook his head with inflexible determination.

“You must accompany me, sir,” said the sergeant to Pasquale.

“To jail?” inquired the other. “A Pasquale to jail!” and he laughed softly, as if the thought amused him.

“Good-bye, Wyndham, dear old friend, faithful to the last; Heaven send you the best of luck,” and he kissed me fondly and even passionately on both cheeks. “God bless you twice over, once for yourself and once for me, who never had a blessing;” and as he spoke a tremor shook his frame and he was barely able to steady himself.

“And, Jacques, my faithful friend and guardian, God bless you too--pray for me.”

Then his gaze grew dim with tears and he turned again to the strange weapon still lying on the table.

“Who would have thought that these little bodkins could have wrought such fearful havoc?” As he spoke he took up one of the steel points and fitted it mechanically into its socket.

It was all over in a moment. With a rapid movement Pasquale directed the point towards himself, his wrist turned slightly, the hand tightened fiercely and then opened, and the ivory handle of the stiletto rolled on the floor as Pasquale reeled and fell into the arms of those behind him. His eyes opened wide, smiled the old smile into mine just for one brief instant, then the darkness of death blotted out their light, and the lids drooped slowly as if from overwhelming fatigue. Pasquale had entered into the rest which knows no waking.

They thought that he had fainted, but I knew differently. The deadly stiletto had done its last work faithfully and fatally. The quick turn of the wrist and the fierce grasp of the weapon had released the powerful spring concealed in the ivory handle, and the dagger point was now imbedded in Pasquale’s heart.

* * * * *

A week later two visitors entered my rooms. They were my dead friend’s father and the valet, Jacques. From the former I learned that his son had, for some years, been subject to fits of dementia. These usually occurred during the full moon. Mr. Pasquale’s reason for sending his son to London was a hope expressed by the family doctor that an entire change of scene might strengthen his mind and his body, and be the means of creating a break in those periodic attacks.

Jacques, the valet, was in reality a faithful servant of the family, employed from the first to take care of his young master. He had occupied the adjoining room with Pasquale from the date of his first arrival, but he kept himself very much in the background, as Pasquale was extremely sensitive lest his condition should become known; a fact which explained his, to me, unaccountable objection to receiving me in his rooms.

After the return from Paris, Jacques, as the reader is aware, took a more prominent part in his master’s daily life, for it was then that I saw him for the first time. This greater prominence was due to the fact that Jacques had reported to Mr. Amidio Pasquale, senior, that the attacks instead of becoming more feeble, were growing more marked month by month.

Jacques explained that the sudden alleged departure of his young master was due to the fact, that, feeling the approach of the mental disorder, he would without delay place himself in his valet’s hands. He was in nowise a prisoner, for from the first to the last there had not been, on the part either of his family or of his so-called valet, the faintest suspicion of a homicidal mania; the only objects of the secrecy being a general watchfulness in case of fresh developments, and to keep his infirmity from the knowledge of his friends.

There were days when Pasquale felt out of sorts and indisposed, and since it was the orders of his medical man that he should be soothed and not opposed at such periods, the valet made no intrusion on his privacy then.

It was undoubtedly at such periods that my friend’s most serious attacks had culminated in the atrocities already recorded, for of his connection with these, subsequent investigations removed every shadow of doubt.

As for the apparent difficulty in crossing the Channel to England, and committing a murder, without his absence being discovered by his friends that was readily explained. He had never while in Paris been under strict surveillance, and he was frequently absent for a few days at a time at a friend’s house.

It was evident that plans conceived during one period of lunacy were perfected during the next, or following periods. This was especially evident in connection with the dead man’s efforts to obtain specimens of the hand-writing of the men whom he had resolved to kill, and had afterwards killed.

In the closet where the disguise was found--in which I had seen my friend arrayed, in that awful midnight glance,--were discovered letters from six well-known justices of the peace, five of whom, including the chief of the police, had undoubtedly died by Pasquale’s hand. These letters were evidently in reply to cunningly worded inquiries, such as would be likely to induce the recipients to answer with their own hands. This had been done in every case but one (the sixth letter had been dictated); and the lengthy epistles which the unsuspecting justices had written afforded Pasquale, then in the fulness of his madness, ample opportunity of making himself acquainted with their handwritings, and so enabled him to forge the farewell letters by each supposed suicide, without fear of detection.

If further proof of my demented friend’s guilt had been wanted, it was readily forthcoming in the drafts of the letters to the justices found in his handwriting in the same recess.

The horrible feeling, akin to remorse, which I experienced on recognizing that it was my evidence as to the aged figure which I had seen at midnight in the adjoining room, that had resulted in my friend’s arrest and suicide, was somewhat mitigated when I learned that on the morning of the discovery the superintendent of police at Scotland Yard had received by the first post a communication from the expert employed by my dead friend to examine the letters left by the supposed suicides, to the effect that having detected a certain resemblance in the handwriting in Pasquale’s letter to that in the forgeries, he had made a crucial examination, with the result of satisfying himself that the two were identical.

On the strength of that evidence a warrant would have been obtained against Pasquale that day had not events rendered it unnecessary.

Nor was that all. On the superintendent’s desk I saw the five letters which had elicited the replies found in the recess. These a keen detective had discovered among the papers of the dead man, when in search of some trace as to the methods employed to obtain specimens of their handwriting. These letters requested a reply to Amidio Pasquale, P. O. Box No. 2034, presumably to avoid their delivery at the house at unseasonable times, and indicating that Pasquale, mad, was on his guard against Pasquale, sane. So that on all sides the net had been closing in around my dear demented friend.

Why, then, did Fate so gratuitously add to my lot the painful reflection that I had, by my ill-timed discovery, precipitated my friend’s death? These additional links proved how boundless the resources of Destiny are when her time has arrived; surely, then, she might have spared me that last bitter drop which she had added to my brimming cup.

* * * * *

My task is done. With Pasquale’s tragic ending a shadow settled upon me, and it has never wholly lifted. Our friendship lives in my memory as the one green and sunny oasis in my desert life, and here, far away from the home of my youth, I sit and muse on the gladsome hours we spent together--my only grounds for belief that there is a happier world beyond.

The man I knew--the friend I loved so passionately, the gentle-hearted creature to whom the pain of any creature which God had made was torture--was unconscious of the acts and ignorant of the identity of Pasquale the insane murderer. That much, wise physicians, versed in the mysteries of the human brain, have told me; and that I at least never for an instant doubted.

It may be that Pasquale’s disorder was mentally contagious, and that my open and receptive mind imbibed some of the fatal theories which at times overbalanced his brilliant intellect. I almost hope that it is so, for it will extenuate the wicked rebellious thoughts which still surge through my brain when I recall the steps, one by one, which led to the final ending.

The thought of the loving and gentle Pasquale, fierce only in the pursuit of wrong, bringing all the marvelous resources of his wonderful brain to the discovery of that terrible London mystery, and unraveling it thread by thread only to weave it anew into a noose for himself, paralyzes my brain. Did ever human being before lead justice step by step through such a labyrinth of crime, and so unweariedly, until he brought her to the very threshold of murder, and face to face with himself the unconscious murderer!

* * * * *

I left my rooms hastily, and in disorder, as if invaded by the plague. Once only I unintentionally passed the house, and through the doorway of my cab I saw the dull, dusty windows of an empty residence, with the legend “To be let” placarded on the ill-fated No. 13.

THE LOST WEDDING-RING.