'Here,' he proceeded, 'is a double scene on the stage--so far as I can understand the sketch of it. The Doctor is upstairs, innocently writing his certificate of my Lord's decease, by the dead Courier's bedside.
Down in the vaults, the Baron stands by the corpse of the poisoned lord, preparing the strong chemical acids which are to reduce it to a heap of ashes--Surely, it is not worth while to trouble ourselves with deciphering such melodramatic horrors as these?
Let us get on! let us get on!'
He turned the leaves again; attempting vainly to discover the meaning of the confused scenes that followed. On the last page but one, he found the last intelligible sentences.
'The Third Act seems to be divided,' he said, 'into two Parts or Tableaux. I think I can read the writing at the beginning of the Second Part. The Baron and the Countess open the scene.
The Baron's hands are mysteriously concealed by gloves.
He has reduced the body to ashes by his own system of cremation, with the exception of the head--'
Henry interrupted his brother there. 'Don't read any more!' he exclaimed.
'Let us do the Countess justice,' Lord Montbarry persisted.
'There are not half a dozen lines more that I can make out!
The accidental breaking of his jar of acid has burnt the Baron's hands severely. He is still unable to proceed to the destruction of the head--and the Countess is woman enough (with all her wickedness)to shrink from attempting to take his place--when the first news is received of the coming arrival of the commission of inquiry despatched by the insurance offices. The Baron feels no alarm.
Inquire as the commission may, it is the natural death of the Courier (in my Lord's character) that they are blindly investigating.
The head not being destroyed, the obvious alternative is to hide it--and the Baron is equal to the occasion. His studies in the old library have informed him of a safe place of concealment in the palace.
The Countess may recoil from handling the acids and watching the process of cremation; but she can surely sprinkle a little disinfecting powder--'
'No more!' Henry reiterated. 'No more!'
'There is no more that can be read, my dear fellow. The last page looks like sheer delirium. She may well have told you that her invention had failed her!'
'Face the truth honestly, Stephen, and say her memory.'
Lord Montbarry rose from the table at which he had been sitting, and looked at his brother with pitying eyes.
'Your nerves are out of order, Henry,' he said. 'And no wonder, after that frightful discovery under the hearth-stone. We won't dispute about it; we will wait a day or two until you are quite yourself again.
In the meantime, let us understand each other on one point at least.
You leave the question of what is to be done with these pages of writing to me, as the head of the family?'
'I do.'
Lord Montbarry quietly took up the manuscript, and threw it into the fire. 'Let this rubbish be of some use,' he said, holding the pages down with the poker. 'The room is getting chilly--the Countess's play will set some of these charred logs flaming again.'
He waited a little at the fire-place, and returned to his brother.
'Now, Henry, I have a last word to say, and then I have done.
I am ready to admit that you have stumbled, by an unlucky chance, on the proof of a crime committed in the old days of the palace, nobody knows how long ago. With that one concession, I dispute everything else. Rather than agree in the opinion you have formed, I won't believe anything that has happened. The supernatural influences that some of us felt when we first slept in this hotel--your loss of appetite, our sister's dreadful dreams, the smell that overpowered Francis, and the head that appeared to Agnes--I declare them all to be sheer delusions! I believe in nothing, nothing, nothing!'
He opened the door to go out, and looked back into the room.
'Yes,' he resumed, 'there is one thing I believe in. My wife has committed a breach of confidence--I believe Agnes will marry you.
Good night, Henry. We leave Venice the first thing to-morrow morning.
So Lord Montbarry disposed of the mystery of The Haunted Hotel.
