"Alas! Now I have frightened you out of your senses," he said, looking at their anxious faces."All is well.In less than another hour I should have summoned Sir Walter.But just that last half-hour overcame me,and I sank into sleep.What is the time?" "A quarter to two, signor.""Good! Then let your uncle be summoned.I have found out the secret.""A thimbleful of old cognac, signor?" asked Masters.
"Willingly, my friend, willingly.I see how wise you both were.I approve and thank you.You thought that I had followed the others into the shades, yet meant to restore me if you could without frightening Sir Walter.To go to sleep was unpardonable."Abraham Masters and Henry descended with the good news, while the old man drank.
"I shall detain you half an hour or so," he said, when they all returned to him."But I have no fear that anybody will want to fall asleep."Sir Walter spoke.
"Thank Heaven, signor, thank Heaven!All is well with you?""All is absolutely well with me, but then I have slept refreshingly for some time.You, I fear, have not closed your eyes.
"Would you have any objection to Masters hearing what you may have to tell us? By so doing a true and ungarbled report will got out to Chadlands.""My report will go out to the whole world, Sir Walter.All is accomplished and established on certain proofs.Your good spaniel has played his part also.I salute him - the old Prince."Henry now observed that the dog was stretched on the floor at Signor Mannetti's feet.
"Still asleep?"
Mary knelt to pat the spaniel and started back."How horribly cold he is!""For ever asleep - a martyr to science.He was to die on Friday, remember.He has received euthanasia a little sooner, and nothing in his life has become him like the leaving of it.The last victim of the Grey Room.Mourn bim not, he passed without a pang - as did his betters.""But, but - you spoke of crime and criminals!" gasped Sir Walter.
"And truly.Great crimes have been committed in this room and greatcriminals committed them.Is a crime any less a crime because the doers have mouldered in their dishonored graves for nearly five hundred years?" "Your handling of speech is not ours, and you use words differently.
The old dog did not suffer, you say?How did lie come to die - in his sleep?""Even so.Without a sigh, the last venerable victim of this murdering shadow.""You saw him die, and yet were safe yourself, sir?" asked Lennox."That is what happened.Now sit down all of you, father Abrahamalso, and in five minutes all will be as clear as day." They obeyed him silently.
"Yes, a master criminal, one whose name has rung down the ages and will from to-morrow win a further resonance.Would that we could bring him to account; but he has already gone to it, if justice lies at the root of things, as all men pray, and you and I believe, Sir Walter.An interesting reflection: How many suffer, if they do not actually perish, from the sins of the dead? Not only the sins of our father are visited upon us, but, if we could trace the infliction, the crimes of countless dead men accomplished long before we were born into this suffering world.I speak in a parable, but this is literal, actual.Dead men committed these murders, and left this legacy of woe."Signor Mannetti stroked the lifeless spaniel.
"When we were left alone I picked him up and set him on the bed.He did not waken, and I knew that he would never waken again.Now let us look at this noble bed, if you please.Here is the link, you see, without which so much that I told you yesterday must have sounded no more than the idle chatter of an old man.Come and use your eyes.Ah, if only people had used their eyes sooner!"They followed him, and he pointed to a framework of carved wood that connected the four posts.
"What is this on the frieze running above the capitals of the little Ionic pillars?""The papal crown and keys," said Mary."Good! Now regard the other side.""A coat of arms - a golden bull on a red ground - why, father, that was what puzzled you at Florence!""Surely it was.The thing stuck in my memory, yet I could not remember where I had seen it before."Signor Mannetti prepared for his effect, then made it.
"The arms of the Borgia!The arms of the Spanish Pope, AlexanderVI.of unholy memory.So all is told, and we will soon go to bed.Having marked them this morning, you will see how readily I was led into the heart of the secret.It only needed some such certain sign.And everything that had happened was consonant with this explanation.The first to suffer puzzled me; but I solved that problem, too.You shall hear how each woman and each man was slain.Look at this mattress upholstered in satin - there lies the unsleeping thing that brings sleep so quickly to others! I guessed it this morning; I proved it to-night.At seventeen minutes past eight Prince was dead; but not until I awoke, near two o'clock, did I dare approach him.For how did he die? The moment the heat of his ancient body penetrated the mattress under him, it released its awful venom.He stretched himself, curled up again, and, as the exhalation rose, with scarcely a tremor he passed from sleep into death.Needless to tell you that I kept far from him, for I guessed that not until the poor fellow was cold would the demon in the mattress sink down and disappear, as the effret into his bottle.Then mattress and dog were alike harmless, as they are now.I gave him only five hours, for he was a small, thin beast, and the heat soon left his body."But, signor-"
